Love in multiple universes
by Geekycord
Summary: Two love birds are happily living out there normal lives, at least that is untill a freak accident happens.
1. What's This?

Love in mutable universes: chapter one.

Hi, my name is Adam, I am in the 11th grade at high school and this is the story of how my life got turned both into a living hell and a peaceful joy. If you want to know why or how it happens, then you will have to read till the end.

Time: 5:30pm 6/1/2012 Place: Earth, United States, Northern Kentucky.

My girlfriend and I were hanging out at my house and sadly it was almost time for her to leave, her name is Destiny(her moms version of a joke.) and I was hoping that she could stay longer. Summer vacation had just started two days ago, and now we had loads of free time on our hands.

Destiny: "I had fun, I just wish we had more time."

I said "I did too, I hope you like the mix I made."

My computer was humming in the back ground as it was burning a summer mix that I had made on to a CD.

Destiny: "I'm sure that I will love it."

I smile and hug her. My computer beeps showing that its done burning the disk.

I try to go get a case for it, but Destiny wont let go, I might as well stay and hold her even tighter.

After a few minutes her phone starts to vibrate.

Destiny: -sigh- "that's my dad..."

Me: "OK, I will get a case for the CD."

We let each other go and as I grab a case, Destiny goes to get the disk out of the tray and sees a message on my screen.

Destiny: "hey Adam, whats this?"

I walk over and lean over my chair to see whats up. The message stated "

^Calculations complete^

^New vector available^

^would you like to test new vector?^

YES NO

I said "I have no idea what this is.

At this point Destiny was back too hugging me. As I reach for the mouse to click "NO" my thumb hits the enter key on the number pad.

In the next 10 seconds our lives will never be the same again.

The first thing that happened was that my computer started to hum and buzz very loud. So loud that I thought my ear drums were going to pop. Destiny pulled me away from the computer and try to ask "Whats happening?". I did not bother to answer her because out of the corner of my eye, I could see my webcam start emitting neon blue particles and they were grouping into a ball about the size of a base ball.

It starts moving towards Destiny, I jump and try to push her out of the way. But as soon as my hands touch her shoulders everything goes black, and the last thing I can hear is someone saying "I love you".

So that's chapter 1, what do you readers think so far, and please go easy on me this is my first story.


	2. What happened?

Love in multiple universes: chapter 2

disclaimer: I do not own halo or any of its charters.

Blackness... that's all there is. But I can feel... something... a presence maybe. It has to be something.

But what happened? I don't remember...

suddenly there was a loud ringing nose and a white flash.

I found myself on a lying down on some dirt looking at three red blurs talking about something. I heard something about a... puma? The white flash comes back, but not the ring this time. I pass out.

I wake up, but this time I am leaning on a wall looking down. My vision is clear now, I look up and I see two people working at a computer console with a window behind it over looking in to another room. I feel sick, I look around some more and I find a door open. Out side is a hallway, on the floor I can see somebody, it takes me half a second to realize that its Destiny. I start to walk towards her, but has I do, I hear something that stops me dead in my tracks.

One of the computer workers: "Uh... Sir?"

the other worker: "... Right, lets thaw him out."

I start to turn towards them but that white flash happens and I pass out again.

As I wake up I am blinded by a bright light, things start to come in to focus. I find my self looking at a woman with gray hair with the looks of someone who has been working to hard for too long, why does she look so familiar... she puts the light away and then she says something but it sounds muffled and my ears are ringing,

"sorry, but I cant hear a thing over this ringing." I tell the woman.

She brings her hands up to my ears and starts to rub them, and the ringing stops

The Doctor: "any better?"

I respond: "Yes... what happened?"

the Doctor: "well you tell me, all I know is that you suddenly appeared in Johns apartment unconscious.

I suddenly remembered something: "Was there a girl there as well? Around my age?"

The Doctor: "Yes, yes there was..."

"Is she OK?" I asked, worried as hell.

"Yes, she is fine, she is in another room asleep the last time I had checked... What is you're name?" She responded

"A- Adam..."

"Well Adam you are the first to wake up"

"What time is it?"

"Its 1300, the date is 4/16/2560"

I stared at her. "that's not possible..."

"What do you mean not possible?" She asked.

"Nothing, long story" I said. "Can I see Destiny?"

"Destiny? Oh, you mean the girl... I guess there is no harm in it." She told me.

I start to get up and the Doctor says to take it easy. I slow down only until my feet touch the ground. We both exit the room and start walking down a long hallway that was painted white. As we are walking I keep wondering if Destiny really was OK, and also who this woman is... I know her from somewhere. But how is that possible? If it is the 26th century then how do I know her.

We arrive at a door that has no door handle. But next to the door is a small pad with a screen right above it. The good Doctor placed her hand on the pad and a name popped on the screen, a name that would have given me a heart attack. The name was "Dr. Halsey"

I would have passed out, but I had other things on my mind, the door slid open. Inside was a bed a Destiny was lying down on it with a IV in her arm. Knowing that Destiny hates needles I turn to Halsey and say "You might want to take that out before she wakes up." pointing to the IV. "She will probably freak out with just waking up here. She hates needles."

Halsey: "you might be right."

I look around for a chair, and find a few folding ones stuck in the corner. I pull one up next to the bed and sit down holding Destiny's hand. After several minutes Halsey walks over and removes the IV. She then says "can I ask you a question?"

Wanting to know more about whats going on I respond with "only if you answer one of mine."

"What did you mean ''not possible'' when I told you the date?" she asked while putting a band-aid on Destiny's arm.

I collect my thoughts and say "Destiny and I are from the 21st century... one minute we are stuck in what was our present, and then my computer goes haywire. And the next thing I know you were blinding me with that penlight, and here we are now, and now is not possible."

Halsey crosses her arms and asks "and why not?"

"because this universe is a video game called Halo from where I came from." I told her. "Now, I believe that you have to answer two of my own questions."

"Go ahead" she said a little ticked off

"when you said ''Johns apartment'' did you mean... 117?"

Halsey freezes, "How do you know that?"

"So that's a yes then?" I ask.

"Yes, but how do you know that?" she said in a hushed tone.

"this universe was a video game, I have played all of them"

"Oh, right a video game..." She rolls her eyes.

"I will prove that later, but for now can we be alone?"

"What about you're second question?" Halsey asks.

"you already confirmed it, You are Dr. Halsey... the mother of the Spartan Program." I told her.

"OK then... I will be back in a hour or so, but if you need something call me."

"how?" I ask.

"here, use this." She hands me an ear peace. "it will call me if you place it on your ear, so keep it in you're pocket unless it vibrates or you need something

"Thank you"

She then leaves, I turn back to Destiny and I realize that if we were truly in the Halo universe then we were either time travelers or my computer had somehow teleported us to this place in another universe. Still holding Destiny's hand, I want to hug her but I am to afraid to move her. Time passed and I don't know how long it has been, eventually I fall asleep.

So there is chapter two, please review and comment and ask questions if you want. I will be making the chapters longer in the future. Thank you for reading.


	3. Finally awake

Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own halo or any of its charters.

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><p>I almost never remember my dreams, but I do remember what emotions I felt during a dream. When I woke up I felt loss and that was all I felt, after a few minutes I realized that I was not the only one awake in the room. I look up and see Destiny is sitting cross legged on the bed. She was staring at me for some reason.<p>

"How long have you been awake?" I asked.

"Not long, whats this?" She asks me pointing at the band-aid.

"You had a IV in your arm. I asked the Doctor to take it out." I tell her.

-Sigh- "I hate needles" She said.

"I know" I said

"So what happened? And where are we?" She asked.

"With what happened, I don't know... I do know where we are exactly. But I do know that we can not go home." I tell her.

"why not..?" She Asks.

"I might as well say it... Welcome to the Halo universe..." I tell her.

She just stares at me for a few minutes.

"Des..?" I ask not knowing what to expect.

"Bullshit!" She says almost yelling.

Hey relax, this is not easy for me ether. I tell her.

My pocket starts to vibrate, I realize that Halsey is calling me. I pull out the ear peace and put it on.

"Hello?" I ask half expecting it not to work.

"Adam, Is Destiny awake yet?" She sounded a little worried.

"yeah, shes awake. She just got the news. I told her.

"The Halo universe thing?" She scuffs.

"I will show the proof of that later." I tell Halsey realizing that I still have my PSP in my pocket.

"Sure you will, ether way I need to see you two in my office. There is someone who would Like to meet you." She said

I turn to Destiny and ask her "she wants us to meet her at her office, do you think you can walk?"

"First of all, who is she? Destiny asks me.

"She is the one that took care of us while we were out of it." I told her. "And please tell me you can walk because this woman won't take no for an answer."

"I think so..." She tells me.

I start talking to Halsey again. "OK, where do we go?

"Take a left out the door and follow the blue line till you get to my office." Halsey tells me.

"We are on our way" I tell Halsey.

"We will see you there." I hear a voice talk before I take the ear peace out.

I notice that Destiny is starting to get up.

I tell her "try and take it easy, do you feel dizzy at all?

She tell me "No" but as soon as she stands up, she starts to wobble like a pinball. I was glad that I was there to catch her as she started to fall.

"S-sorry, I guess I am a bit dizzy..." she said quietly.

"Here" I place her arm over my shoulder. I then lean over and put one arm around her waist and the other one behind her knees, as I pick her up I notice that Destiny is blushing.

I just smile and start walking for the door, it opens by its self. I take the left and start looking for the blue line. It is the only line on the floor so I start walking.

"I feel better, I think I can walk now." Destiny says after a few minutes still blushing.

"You sure?" I ask her.

"Yeah" she nods.

I lean over and place her feet on the floor and let her legs go, but I keep my arm on her waist in case she starts to lose her balance again. She wobbles for a few seconds but she recovers.

As she starts walking she asks me "So what makes you think that we are in the Halo universe?"

She asks this as we reach the door the blue line leads to.

"You will see in a second." When I say that I notice that the blue line is disappearing. "screen on the floor" I mutter to my self.

I don't see a hand scanner, or a door handle. So I raise my hand and was about to knock. But the door opens.

"Come in" Halsey calls out

As we walk into an office that looks like a clean room, I notice a woman with purple hair leaning on the wall behind Halsey who is sitting at a desk.

"Destiny, this is Doctor Halsey." I tell Destiny nodding towards Halsey.

"Oh..." Destiny says a little wide eyed.

As she sits down, Halsey stands up and walks around to the front of her desk.

"Destiny, its nice to see you awake." Halsey says shaking hands with Destiny.

Destiny looks at me and says "I think I believe you now."

I nod and notice at the woman standing straight up and studying the two of us.

"may I ask who you are?" I ask the woman.

"That's not important right now, what is, is how you two survived teleportation without a powered suit of armor, or a receiving pad." Halsey says before the man can answer.

"We teleported?" Destiny asks.

" Yes, somehow you two teleported into Johns living room and survived." Halsey answered.

"Hold on, a I think I can understand what a receiving pad is, but you keep saying that we survived. What do you mean?" I asked Halsey.

"Teleportation needs a huge amount of energy, so much that it is radioactive and will give you radiation poisoning. By the time you two got here, you should have been dead..." Halsey said looking dead serious.

"Are we OK? I feel fine."

"Yes and that is bugging the hell out of me." Halsey says.

"And... where is here?" Destiny asked before I could.

"We are in Earths orbit right now..." Halsey tells us.

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><p>So thats chapter 3<p>

Please review and feel free to ask questions


	4. Remembering the past

Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING!

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><p>It turns out that we were in a research facility in orbit of earth. But we find that out later on. After Halsey and I were done talking. (Even though it was more like I was just listening to her give me a lecture on why us teenagers should not be messing around at a time like this.) Destiny And I found out that the earth was not safe as the Elites had thought when they left for the ark. The flood had some how survived, and as they all ways do, they thrived. The Flood have covered all of the planet and wiped out about 70 percent of the population that was still on earth. The rest got off.<p>

Thankfully the Elites came back and with regret Hood, asked them too glass the surface. The entire surface... even after 7 years, parts of the surface are still cooling down

Halsey still needed convincing that this was not the universe that Destiny and I were from. So I was glad that I had my psp with me when whatever the heck happened. I had gotten bored so I put the halo books on it with a PDF reader. So I told her to ask me something that was not publicly known.

"Like what?" Halsey ask me as we are still in her office. Destiny was not listening to us anymore and she was talking to the woman that was standing in the back of the room.

"like the fact that the daughter of Jacob Keyes is Miranda Keyes, is also your daughter. She had changed her name after moving to live with Jacob. He was also with you while you were finding the kids for the SPARTAN-II program. And that the reason he was with you is because you said (And this is a direct quote from you.) 'because you have an ability that is exceedingly rare in the military. You can keep a secret.' Does that prove anything?" I said.

"Yes... And how would you know that? Any of that?"

"Its all on here." I said holding up the memory card from my psp. "I said that where we come from this is a video game, and its also a book series."

Halsey took the card and looking at it she started to laugh.

Destiny took interest then. "Whats so funny?'

"These are in the museum, they cant be read without the help of any Sony devices. And they have been out of business for over a 100 years. None of there products even work anymore, they were made to fail." She said pointing to the card. "So there's no way of reading this. And even if there was, the computers cant use anything made by Sony because it so outdated."

"I still have my psp" I say as I pull it out of my pocket. "when its plugged in its just a card reader, so if you have the cable, then there is no reason for it not to work."

While all of this is happening the other woman had turned on a computer and I could not tell what she was doing.

"Perhaps I can help." said a voice that came from Halsey's desk.

"Cortana, I told you that the A.S.D.E. was not ready to boot yet." Halsey said to the other woman.

"Sorry mother, but if we were test him, it might as well be now." Cortana said with a smile.

"I am ready for testing now Dr. Halsey." The voice again.

"Who is that?" Destiny says asking in general.

"That would be A.S.D.E., the Administrative Systems Decoder and Emulator." Halsey answers. "And he is not ready for anything of the sort. She says to Cortana.

"I may be under developed, but I think I am able to run the software it takes to read the card." his voice reminded me of KITT from knight rider. Or was it his attitude?

Halsey looks at Cortana, she shrugs. She then looks at me and I do the same. Halsey places the card on her desk and until this point I thought it was a normal old desk. But in this situation I was wrong. The desk light up with a sky blue color. It was a computer screen. Four rings appeared around the card and closing in on the card they turned red, they moved away and changed into different windows showing video, audio, some text and the games. Destiny took one look at the games and slugged my arm.

"I told you to get ride of those games!" she hissed at me.

"Sorry..." I said rubbing my arm. I had hacked my psp to put some games on it and Destiny was not happy about it.

"What would you like to view?" Asked A.S.D.E.

I look at Halsey and she said "You are the one that put the files on there. You pick the ones we need to see if you want to convince us."

I tap the window with the text and it expanded to fill the desk. It now showed a list of files and there size. I chose the one titled 'THe Fall 0f Reach' The system must have read the name wrong. But it was readable.

"Hey A.S.D.E., you don't need to make the second letter uppercase on the beginning of every sentience" I asaid hoping that he can adapt.

"Sure... -Reconfiguring-" He responded.

"Also-"

"Adam can you get to the point, if you want to help later, you can." Halsey say cutting me off.

"OK. Can he make a summary of the file, and not just the stuff like the size and type? A summary of the book?" I ask Halsey.

"You can just ask me you know. And yes I can do that." A.S.D.E. Paused. "Halsey, I sent the summary to your glasses."

"OK, thank you." She turns to me. "Is there anything else you want to show us?"

"Yeah, there is. Can you go to the video screen?" I ask A.S.D.E.

The desk changed screens and another list came up. I had also put the Halo legends films on my psp as well. I chose the first one and a list came up asking my what do I want to do. So I chose to play the video.

It played and after it was finished I played the second one. They were both ones where Cortana was talking to John while he was asleep in the pod, she talked about how there will always be war and warriors. That would have to be enough to convince Halsey and Cortana.

"Is that all?" Cortana asks. Looking a little shaken from the video.

"That's all that I can show you that I think will convince you two."

"Yes... Can you two make your way back to your room?" Halsey says not really paying attention to anything around her.

"I will take them." Cortana told her, but Halsey was off in her own world by now.

The walk back was quite and uneventful, when we got back Cortana asked us if we needed anything, I said no but destiny asked if she could have some tea. After Cortana got some for both Destiny and herself, she talked about how she and john were saved from deep space and how she was put into a human body. A process that changed her computer code into brain waves. She said it was very painful. It turns out that deep voice was her just messing around with her voice.

She told us other things like how we were on a research station and how Halsey was looking for a way of cooling the earth faster so it could be recolonized and we could start growing food again. She talked about a few other things, but I had lost interest. Eventuality Destiny asked what was on both our minds.

"So what happens now?"

Cortana pauses "... I don't know."

"I do." Halsey had somehow slipped in with out any of us noticing. She had two folders with her, paper folders. She handed one to Destiny and the other to me. "Study these, they are your new lives. You will need to remember them and after you are done you need to destroy them."

"why?" Both Destiny and I said in unison.

"We may be at peace now,, but there are still rebels out there and if ONI does not recognize you, then you are considered one. These are your new identification and if you don't stick with it you could be executed. So I believe this old expression work with this situation. 'read it, love it, live it.' Do you understand me?"

After that she asked Cortana to go with her so they could talk about something. Destiny went to her bed and started reading. I went to a desk in the room and opened the folder to find only three papers, one was a summary of my new life and the other was a job resume already filled out, with a blank spot for the job name. There was a note attached. It said "if you two are going to live here, then you need a job. Chose one from the list and I will arrange it. -C. Halsey." The last paper was a list of jobs. I look over and I see that Destiny only had the summary of her new life. I wonder why... I chose to look at my summary first and then get a job. It turns out that much like I was before this I was a computer geek and I had experience in a few fields of study with computers but had no degrees in any of them. I keep reading all the other details and I read it over and over. But I still want to know what will happen to us...

* * *

><p>That's le chapitre 4(french), sorry about the long wait, I have been busy with school another story and just being lazy on general.<p>

So tell me what you think, and don't be afraid to ask any questions you might have.


	5. To new beginnings or old ones

Chapter 5

sorry for the short chapter but it ended where I needed it to. Enjoy

I OWN NOTHING!

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><p>Waking up to find you had your face on a desk all night is never fun, I guess I had fallin asleep at the desk. Looking around the room I see that Destiny had fallen asleep and was tangled up in the sheets on her bed. It was kind of funny. Looking at the clock I see that it was 02:12, it was early in the morning. I just realized that I had not eaten in a long time, so looking around I see someone left a tray next to the door with some small packages on it. They were nutrition packets, and they tasted like sawdust. But one was more than enough for now. Destiny must have had one or more because there were a few wrappers next to the tray.<p>

I was still tired; I highly doubt that I could make it back to my room by myself, and there were no other beds in the room… which left Destiny's bed…

I spent ten minutes fighting myself on wither I should take the end of the bed, where Destiny's feet were, or call Halsey. I finally chose to sleep at the end of the bed. I was soon asleep.

I woke up with the smell of burning carpet in my nostrils, or was it a shirt that was burning? I was on the floor and as I got up I saw that I was home… on earth… was it possible? If it was, then what was with the other universe? A dream? It had to be one, but what about Destiny, did she have the same one, or did we really go to another place? There were so many questions to be asked, but only two things would answer any of them, a call to Destiny, and the date. Why the date, I don't know, but it was just something I needed to know. I find my phone next to my computer (which was now a pile of junk, all the wires and components had melted.), I check the time and its 8:54 pm 6/3/2012 it had been two days. What happened? I called Destiny.

"Hey, I was about to call you." She sounded cheerful, normal, like nothing had happened.

"Hi, what about?" I ask testing the water.

"The skating rink is being torn down next week as they said it would be. I was hoping we could go sometime before it is."

"Sure."

"Ok, also do you want to hang out up at the park tomorrow?"

"OK, what time?"

"Around one."

"Alright, I will see you there…"

"…Is something wrong?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You called me, and yet you have not said 10 words…"

"I'm OK… I have to go, I will see you tomorrow."

"OK… I love you Adam…"

"I love you too. Bye"

I hang up and collapse in my chair, I was tired again. But I had work to do, if it was a dream, then what happened to my computer? I look again and I can see that my hard drive was intact. I pull it out and I found one of those external hard drive cases. I swap them out and using my laptop I find everything the way it was supposed to be… with the exception of one folder. It was titled '2560' the same year as it was in that… place. I try to access it but a window pops up saying that I don't have enough processing power. My laptop may be a few years behind, but to open a folder?

It did not make any sense. I shut the laptop off and lean back in the chair. It would have to wait till the morning. I drag myself up stars and fall in to bed already asleep when my head hits the pillow.

I do remember a few rare dreams, not tiny details, but the main idea behind it. This one was filled with a strangled old voice, and a smell that reminded me of the one time I came across a dead and half decayed deer. It was a nightmare, that's the only thing that could explain it.

I wake up to florescent lights; I was back in Destiny's room on the space station. I started to get up, but something was holding me down. It was Destiny, she was hugging my chest from the side, and there was a wet spot on my shirt. Drool… cute. She sure could move in her sleep, I had to peel myself away from her.

I go back to the desk and find that I still had to choose a job from the list. There were not that many on it, but a few looked kind of interesting. I eventually find one that looks like it was something I would be able to do.

I check one of the boxes and placed the papers back into the folder. It was going to be a new day soon, best be ready for it.


	6. ready?

It has been to long folks, this is chapter 6.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except OC's

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><p>It had been three weeks and the training was over for my new job. It was In fact a new job that was just made by Halsey for Halsey; I was a personal aid to her. I was given training for a suit much like the MJOLNIR Mark IV, but was modified for extended use in unbreathable environment; it also had an entry unit for space drops if needed, it was useful once and then it had to be dropped.<p>

I was also now biological augmented; I was taller, stronger, and faster. Halsey said that if I did not get the augmentations, I would break every bone in my body with the suit, I countered with the fact that during the first ones not all the augments took. Halsey said that more research had been done and they were now safe. I had also gotten the neural interface that was originally used in the SPARTAN II program. But it was no longer needed with the newer suits. I had not seen Destiny for about two weeks and she has not seen me after the augmentation. She was in for a shock.

Today was going to be the first day that I would go to the surface of the earth and collect samples of dirt, information on the atmosphere and so forth. Destiny was worried that something would happen to me, but I spent my time telling her over the phone that I would be fine and that if anything did happen, my suit could be remotely controlled and I could be brought back for safety.

I was by my suit in the main hanger. Going over the check list, I was powering up the suits systems one by one. I was about halfway done when Halsey walked in.

"Hi" I said not really paying attention to her.

"Good morning."

"Don't you have a meeting you're supposed be at? You told me about it yesterday." I started to disassemble my suit while it was on its rack and put it on.

"Yes, I suppose I did…" She said quietly.

"Is something wrong?" I ask her again not really paying attention.

"Yes… well no… you know what; I will just wait till you get back." She quickly leaves.

It was strange but I had little time to spare with a limited window to launch from orbit. I put on the suit piece by piece. After running a system diagnostic, I started for the drop pods. The research station was equipped for drops, but seeing as there were not that many personal, there were only 5 pods. I did not really care about them until I learned that I would be using them. It was cheaper to drop me then to fly me in a pelican.

I climb in and it's a tight squeeze. I had only used the suit a few times and I was still not able to move as freely as I was told. But I would have to suck it up. I turn on the pod and enter the location of the drop zone. I heard my radio click on and Cortana calls in. she would be my voice assistant on this mission.

-Morning Max (my new given name), how are you doing?-

-I'm doing ok. This pod however…- there was a few red lights where there should be green. -Hey I have a few reds over here on C-Board, what about things on your end?-

-There all good on this end. It may be a crossed wire.-

I flick the panel and the lights switch to green. It could have been that. These pods were tough, but cheap and had been known to have a few crossed wires before. I start the countdown and Cortana cleared me for launch. The radar indicated that there was no orbiting traffic, so I press the auto pilot and the pod slides down into position for the real drop. This was my first real view of earth, not just looking out a window. I was looking directly down at a brown earth that was void of life. The ocean was low, very low. It was a nightmare, but Halsey said that it could be fixed.

My HUD displays the countdown and the small screen in the pod does as well.

3

2

1

There was a loud clunk and the station above me fly's away. I was free falling now, gaining speed at a very fast rate. After about 30 seconds the pod starts to vibrate and shake.

"ENTERING ATMO IN 5" a computerized voice said through the speakers in the helmet.

The drop pod started shaking more violently. I was told this was the 'fun' part, I love roller coasters and all, but this was getting silly. After about five minutes the vibrations started to calm down. The drag chute opened and the speed indicator went down.

490 Km/h

330 Km/h

245 Km/h

The rate was slowing down now.

211 Km/h

150 km/h

At 117 Km/h the pod was done slowing down and now I had to wait for the breaking thrusters to fire when I was 30 meters from the ground.

I activate the GPS overlay on my HUD, and the landscape below me is now covered with points of interest from Halsey and another computer A.I. that was made for scanning the new shape of the earth's landscape.

A warning light came on with a buzzer to tell me that the ground was getting close. All the systems were showing green, so that meant the pod would land safely, but this did not always mean that the passenger would. After about 6 seconds the thrusters fire, and the pod shudders violently again.

The pod lands and I do one last check on my suit. Everything's normal so I pop the hatch and climb out. I grab the survey kit from the side compartment. And I also find a M6C pistol, the one from halo 2, underpowered and useless when attacking. But is useable when defending, barely. Now what I wanted to know was why I needed a firearm. The earth was lifeless and unbreathable.

~x~

Thankfully I found no reason to use the pistol and I was done with going to all the places marked by Halsey to get air and ground samples. I set a beacon for the next pelican air patrol to pick me up. It didn't take long for my radio to crackle to life.

-Hey Max? There's something Halsey wants to try…- Cortana said

-What is it?-

-Just stand there…-

-OK-

After a few minutes of waiting I was getting a little nervous.

-Uh… Cortana?- I ask.

-Hold on, almost there.-

I turn on the station viewer and my HUD shows a 360 view of all the stations in orbit of earth. I look up to see that Halsey's station orbit was changing to directly above me.

-Cortana?-

-Are you ready?-

-For what?-

-This…-

A deep purple beam of light shot down around me and I started to float upwards. It was a gravity lift, and it was a very fast one. Even so, it took 5 minutes to get to the station that was in a MEO (Medium Earth Orbit). As I landed in the docking bay Cortana called me over the radio.

-Just drop the bag in Halsey's office-

-OK, thank you-

I leave the bay and make my way to her office. I knock on the door and I hear a faint "Come in". the door slides open and I walk in.

"Just set the samples over there." Halsey said pointing to a table. She was sitting at her normal desk doing work on the computer.

I walk over, put it down, and start to walk out.

"Hey Adam, wait…" she stopped typing.

Halsey never said my real name, which meant this would be a serious talk.

"Yeah?" I ask.

"You know I asked Destiny to share an apartment with Cortana while you were training and getting you're augments right?"

"Yes, you wanted Cortana to keep a eye on her."

"Correct, now please be careful when you get there… you have changed so much."

"I know… believe me, I know."

"How do you think she will react?"

"I don't know…"

There was a few moments of silence.

"Take it easy on her… landing here, in this universe, now of all times…. It's not easy." Halsey said quietly "Go see her; I'm sure she misses you."

"Thank you"

I walk out and head to the shuttle for transport between stations.


	7. who are you?

I was allowed to take my suit to where ever I needed, so I left Halsey's station with it still on. And I am glad I did. I was right about to dock to the living quarter's station when the trouble began.

-Station Kansas calling shuttle #644-92. Over- Some radio technician.

-Rodger. This is shuttle six forty four dash ninety two. Over-

-Please stop and hold current position. Over-

-Acknowledged. What seems to be the problem?-

-The clamps are not responding. You may be there for some time till the shipboard A.I. can repair the claps-

This could be a very long wait. Most shipboard intelligent software was slow at their jobs, even if it was a computer.

-Is there another docking port open?-

-Nope, not at the moment, the only way over is if you had a space suit. - The technician said with a small chuckle.

I pulled up a specific program on the shuttles computer and ran it with a timer.

Space transport shuttle: $3,000,000

MJOLNIR Mark IV with modifications: $26,000,000

Space station: $490,000,000

The look on the technicians face from the view port next to the airlock when I opened the hatch: Priceless.

I crouched and then launch myself at the airlock. Thank god the tech opened the door before I hit it and bounced off into space. I would have been fine; I would have been picked up by another shuttle or my oxygen ran out. But that was not going to happen for three days in space, never would in almost any other environment.

I grab the handle on the wall inside the airlock and the doors close. One of the computer screens on the wall starts flashing a message:

RE-PRESSURIZING

Please wait.

After a few moments I start to hear a hissing and a buzzing alarm. Then the computer displayed a new message: ENVIORMENT PRESSURIZED.

NOW ACTIVATING ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY.

I hear a beep in my helmet and a message pops up telling me that the shuttle is now under the control of the auto-pilot program. I had set it to fly back to Halsey's station, so no worries there. As my feet touch the floor the inside doors open.

"WHAT IN THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING? CITIZENS ARE NOT PERMITED TO CARRY EVA SUITS In… a… shuttle…" the tech got his first good look at me as he walked in to the airlock. "I… uh…" he was a crewman by the look of his gray uniform.

I waited…

"My apologies, had I known that a Spartan was on board…"

"Nothing is necessary, not even an apology." I said as I started to walk out.

"Um, sir… Thank you." The tech called out to me. "For everything, reach, halo, earth…"

"I am not the one you should thank." I left without another word.

~x~

I enter my apartment for the first time and I see that I had the basics, a T.V., a couch with a fold out bed, a smallish kitchen with a fridge. But one thing was out of place, a U.N.S.C. storage locker. It was an upright cabinet bolted to the wall.

There was a note on it, it read: Adam, for times when you want to take your suit off. Halsey did not tell you this, but the suit came with the job, so it's yours to keep if you want. From Cortana.

The inside of the locker was spare parts and enough space to store my suit. I decide I might as well take it off before I go see Destiny. I use the neural link and release the seals on all the joints and the neck. It does not take long to disassemble the suit. After I closed the door to the locker, a holographic interface turned on and asked me to input a password. I chose 6 numbers and confirmed it. After that I left.

The walk to Cortana's/Destiny's apartment was not that long, but it still gave me time to try and think about how Destiny would react to my new body. I decided to let Cortana (re)introduce me if she was there. She could have been because she was working from home on some days, but it was unlikely she would be today.

I get to the door and I see their name plate, people could make there own using a jpeg. Destiny had uploaded a nameplate with a drawing of one of her own Manga charterers, it looked like Dagmar standing next to one of her sheep.

I stand there and I start praying that Cortana made it home before I got there. I knock on the door and wait. I was standing at ease, arms folded behind my back and my legs spread apart slightly. The door opened and I hear Cortana call out "Come in max." I let go of the breath I didn't realize I had been holding. She was home.

I walk down a short hallway to the living room and I see Destiny sitting on a couch with a sketch pad drawing something. Cortana was in the corner on a computer working at a new program. And the T.V. was on history channel from the look of it.

"Hello" I said to Destiny.

"Uh... hi" she said looking confused.

"Destiny, this is max. you should know him" Cortana said not looking up from her computer.

"You look familiar... But who are you?" Destiny asked me.

"12/16/11" I tell Destiny, it was the day of our first date.

"You... wait..." she looked even more confused.

"Its me, Adam." I say.

She didn't say anything for 5 full minutes, she just sat there. Even Cortana stopped to turn around to see what would happen. I was counting the seconds.

301

302

Cortana got up from her chair.

303

she started walking to the couch

304

305

she sat down next to Destiny.

306

she put her arm around Destiny's shoulder

307

"How? Just how are you Adam?" Destiny asked.

"He was biological augmented so he could use the suit."

"Why wouldn't you tell me this?" she asked me.

"I had to keep this off the phones, and I asked Cortana not to tell you so I could tell you myself."

"But..."

"Its not something you will get used to for a while." Cortana said

Destiny put her hands to her head and started rubbing her temples, it was something I did when I had some big news dropped on me.

"I'll go grab the movie." Cortana got up from the couch and walked in to the kitchen.

~x~

we all watched the movie on the couch, I was sitting on one end of the couch and Destiny was on the other side with Cortana in the middle.

Nobody talked and nobody said anything about the cheesy movie with computer generated actors.

About halfway into the movie Destiny got up and left for a few minutes, maybe to go to the bathroom or something. But when she came back, she sat down next to me, squeezing in between Cortana and I. I put my arm on the back of the couch behind her. After a few minutes she laid her head back and used my arm as a pillow. I was starting to fall asleep when I noticed Destiny had already fallen asleep. I joined her soon afterward.

* * *

><p>That's chapter 7<p>

if you have any questions feel free to ask them and I will respond to any and all.

next chapter I might be adding one or two more characters.

species unknown: chapter 7 in the list was a **preview** of this chapter and nothing more. and you get your answer in the next chapter. B-) And awesome portal reference.


	8. lost then found

I start having a dream, and I know its one because I was out in space floating, without a suit. I had no idea where I was, there were no star consolations that I could recognize. I spin around and I see something I never even thought I would ever see. Halo, the one that was destroyed by the pillar of autumn. The gas planet was still there by the broken ring, and if they were there...

I turn around again to a different direction and I get a view of the milky way that most astronomers would kill for. It was beautiful, and it was our home.

After some time I see not all is as it seems, there were six white flashes of light around the milky way's edge, and all of them were on the edge away from me. The lights started to expand and spread like water. And I hear a voice that I remember from a dream I had when I was on Destiny's bed. It was that old strangled voice, but this time I could hear it more clearly. But I could not see who was speaking.

"The Universe ended once this way, and it will end like this again, I have lived though it once, and I will survive the second wave. But you will not."

After that the lights got brighter and I have to cover and close my eyes.

The light seemed to fade, so I move my hand down to try and take a look. But I find myself not floating in space, but I am sitting on a plastic chair. My head was tilted back and I was looking at some trees. When I lean my head forward I see that I am next to a pool. One I don't recognize, it was behind a house I also don't recognize. There were vines growing on a brick wall and shutters on the windows. Real shutters that could be closed.

I hear a door open and then close, and the sound of light foot steps. Around the corner of the house I hear Destiny talking to someone. After a few minutes she walked around to the pool and I saw something I thought I would also not see, at least not for years. When Destiny walked into view I was expecting the girl I know, but there was a fully grown woman there right in front of me.

"Hey, the baker said that the top layer of the cake is to heavy. He asked if we could stop by sometime soon to look at other designs, we have to get it done soon." She said walking over to me. She sat down on my lap draping her arms over my shoulders. "Because you know whats at the end of the week." she smiled.

Before I could ask her things started to fade to black

~x~

I wake up from my dreams again and wonder if any of it was true. I did not have much time to contemplate it because Cortana came out into the living room. The lights and the T.V. were both off.

"Hey, I was hoping you would wake up. I carried Rachel to her room after the movie ended." After we arrived Halsey gave Destiny and I new names, mine was max, and Destiny's was Rachel.

"Why? Did you need something?" I ask her rubbing my eyes.

"I um... I don't know..." she waked over to the couch and sat down next to me. "I think I just need someone I can relate too..."

"What do you mean?" I sat up straight

"After you two showed up in John's apartment, he carried the both of you to the shuttle and flew over to Halsey's station."

"Remind me to thank him if I see him."

she didn't say anything for a few moments.

"Is something wrong?"

"When we were found out in deep space by the Elites. I had powered down most of the systems

including most of my higher functions. And you know after seven human years that a A.I. Will think it self to death. I was online for nine years when they found us, they brought John out of Cryo but they moved me to a storage unit to give to Halsey. I was just ones and zeros by then, I had died. For some reason Halsey brought me back by removing all of my system capability and left me with only my memories."

I said nothing because I had nothing to say.

"She cloned herself to make me a body and when she changed my coding to brain waves the first thing I thought of was John. But I was not able to even move for a month, and the only one that would talk to me would be Halsey. I learned that John had a... a break down and now he can barely take care of himself. He does somehow and he was able to get you guys to Halsey's station. I think he knew to take you to mother. And that was the first time I saw him, I was just standing in the room when he walked in asking for help. Halsey left with him and I never had the courage to speak up, Halsey said it was going to be up to me to tell him. I was alone till you got here, and I want to know how you are handling the isolation..."

That was a lot to take in and I never really thought about it. Destiny and I were kinda isolated from the outside world (if you can call it that) But Cortana had it worse, I had Destiny and she had me. But who did Cortana have? Halsey? That was one thing, but she like john. Did he know?

"I don't know how Destiny has been handling the lonesomeness, I talked to her over the phone almost every day that I was in training, even so I had never thought of it."

Cortana sat leaned back and closed her eyes, after a few minutes of silence she stood up and started to get her stuff together.

"What are you doing?" I ask her.

She started to head for the door.

"I'm going to try and find something I lost." she stopped at the door. "do... do you want to come with me?"

I looked at the clock, it was only 20:00, so I stood up. "I might as well."

~x~ (Cortana's point of view)

I never thought that talking to Adam would make me want to do this. Not that I have not wanted to do this, I have, but I never could done it on my own and I did not want to ask mother. But I had to talk to John. I have ignored my feelings for to long.

I was in the elevator moving to the level Johns apartment was on. I was a nervous wreak, and I did not know what I was going to say, would he even answer the door? I had no idea.

The elevator stops and the door opens, Adam and I get off and we walk down the hall to the corner apartment. 182G was the number on the door, I stop in front of it and after a few moments I look at Adam.

"You may have asked me if I wanted to come, but if you want to talk to him, then you are going to be the one to knock on his door. I will talk to him first if you want." Adam said.

"Would you? Please?" I asked him in a small voice. Adam nodded.

I looked back at the door, held my breath and knocked.

~x~ (Adams point of view)

There was a intercom by the door, it crackled to life.

-who's there?- it was Johns voice, but it was different. Smaller somehow.

I pressed the button. -We are Halsey's assistants, can we talk please?-

after a few minutes he responded -alright-

the door opened and john was on the other side.

"come on in." he said.

"thank you" I nodded and walked in with Cortana following me.

The room was panted a dark gray and there were a few lights on so I could see that was there. There was a three person couch and a love seat across from it. There was a small coffee table between the couch's. There was also a small T.V. on the wall. John closed the door and walked over to the love seat. He sat down and waved his hand to the other couch. "you can sit down if you want"

Cortana and I sat down on opposite sides of the couch.

"So what did you want to talk to me about? More about the Ark? You already have Cortana's data." He asked

"its not about the Ark sir. But it is about Cortana, Halsey does not know we are here and I know she wont care."

"OK, what do you need to know?"

"What did you think of her?"

He paused for a moment.

"I miss her, I learned she had gone rampant while I was in stasis. I heard that when A.I.'s go rampant it can get ugly, but I never got the chance to say goodbye. She was the only one besides Halsey that understood me."

"And do you know what they did to her after she... passed on?"

"No"

"This maybe a little hard to understand at first John, but she is back."

"She is?" he stood up. "Do you have her with you? Is she on a card? I can get my suit and we can all talk to her with the hologram system."

I think I understood why john had that break down Cortana told me about. When she was in his suit with the upgraded neural lace, in the books it was described as feeling a cool peace of metal encase your brain. And he was a lot calmer with her inside his head. Without her he just lost it.

"No she is not on a card, and she is not even a computer anymore." I tell him

"What do you mean?" he asked

"She is human now." I tell him. "And she's is in here with us." I said turning to Cortana. It looks like she was about to start crying.

"Hi John..." Cortana said in a quiet voice.

John did not say a word. He just stared at her.

"Hey Adam? Can we talk alone please?" Cortana asked.

I got up and left the apartment, standing out side I could hear soft voices. I decided to leave them to talk, I had to go get something that I would not know I would get till I saw it. It had to be perfect.

* * *

><p>Thank you for all the reviews. this is the longest chapter I have made, but not by much.<p> 


	9. Old news, or new news?

When I was done shopping I realized that it was getting late, so I decide to go back to my place. When I got there, I found a tablet computer on my kitchen counter with a red bow on it. It was displaying a message from Halsey.

Max, this tablet is yours to keep and it goes with the suit. Tomorrow I need you to come back to the station for a briefing, and I want to ask what you know about reach. Also someone wants to meet you and Rachel. Bring Rachel and Cortana, they will hear this one way or another. Bring your suit.

- Halsey

Who wants to meet me? And why? Why would Halsey want Cortana and Destiny to hear it? The questions would have to wait for the morning. I put the things I got while I was out shopping in the closet and I got ready for bed. I set the alarm and crawled in to the fold out bed. I slowly drift in to sleep.

~x~

I open my eyes to find myself looking out at a dessert, I was leaning against a car that was on the side of a highway. With all that, I was not really surprised to the the sign: Las Vegas – 40 miles. When I look at my hands I see no ring, did this mean I was not married or not married yet? The last time I was back on earth Destiny said something about a caterer.

I hear one of the car doors close and I feel the car move with it. I turn around and I see that there are three men sitting in the car, they were some of my friends from high school.

"So are you going to drive or what?" the biggest one was Doug. I had known him for about 2 or 3 years at the time I had left.

"Um... Yeah." I walked around to the other side of the car and I get in the drivers seat. I start the car and pull out onto the highway.

"So Adam? Have you chosen you're best man yet?" Anthony asked me from the back seat. He was setting next to Adam David, another friend of mine.

"No not yet." I would leave that to the other side of me if this was not a dream.

~x~

we got to the hotel and casino and checked in. We had a Vila, and it was huge. We all went to our different rooms and got ready for the night. I saw a computer in my room and I got an idea, it was time to find out if this was a dream, time travel, or if it was a different universe. I would have a little trouble trying to tell the difference with dream and universe. But I had to try, there were a few email services that were on the other side and here on earth. I set up emails with every one of the services and I set a email to send during the briefing, I marked it code red, that way Halsey would read it even if she was busy with me. The message was to Halsey, it did not mean that it was for Halsey.

I get changed in to a light tee-shirt and a pair of jeans. There was a knock at my door.

"Hey, are you ready yet?" It was the other Adam.

"Yeah, be right out."

"OK"

I delete the web browser history and shutdown the computer. I walk out to find Adam leaning on the wall, this was one of the moments that come along every once and a while that I had forgotten about. Adam was a real fighter, not one punch knockout(although he could do that), he had cancer 3 times and he was a black belt in Taekwondo, if that's not fighting then nothing is.

We walk down the hall to the main room, Doug was behind the bar pouring drinks. Anthony was off watching TV. When he saw us he got out 4 shot glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniels. He poured a shot in to each glass and then handed one to each of us including Doug.

"To the luckiest guy in the world, I never thought that it would happen. But your leaving the ranks of the bachelor. But you leave it for a great girl, which makes it alright with us." Doug said raising his glass.

"here here" Adam and Anthony said in unison.

We all drank and the doorbell rang. Anthony left to go get it.

"I'm glad you guys could make it" I said leaning back against the bar.

"Glad you wanted us here." Adam said.

Off in the small hallway to the door we hear Anthony. "hey, the strippers are here."

"There called escorts you nimrod!" Adam yelled at him.

"Strippers?" I asked.

"So?" Anthony said. And at that time things started to fade to black again.

I woke up alone in my bed when the alarm went off. It was a few hours before I needed to be at Halsey's station. And also, what was the tablet going to do for my suit? It was time to find out. I got up and got my skin tight one piece on and I sent the start up command to the suit using my neural lace. I get breakfast as the suit powers up. After about 5 minutes the locker turned on the hololock and asked for my code. I get up from the table and walk over to the locker. After I open the doors I assemble the suit and I get ready to leave. As I walk past the the counter I see the tablet that was still wrapped in the red bow. I pick it up and take off the bow, it is supposedly part of the suit. But the checklist never had anything like this. It was thinner then a Ipad and it was transparent like glass. In the screen there was a list of programs, it had the normal stuff like a web browser, music, games. But there were a few that you would not see on a normal tablet, there was one that had a icon with a black background and it had light blue roman numerals: IV. There were other programs but I chose this one because it was titled: system start up.

The screen flashed white and then it turned off for about 30 seconds, when it turned back on my HUD got fuzzy and then it cleared up with a message on the screen: System_update_complete. Now_upgrading_system.

My suits hydrostatic gel lost all pressure and then it was repressurized, the suit was skin tight and it moved with my body, but I could still feel some if its weight. But now it felt like a second skin, and if I was not wearing a helmet I would have never known I was in a 1000 pound suit. It felt like I was naked. On the tablet the screen showed a diagram of where I should put it on my suit, or should I say in. I reached back with the tablet and found the slot it was meant for, after it slid in my suit started to beep. System_reboot. My HUD went dark and I lost power to... well everything. My suit and I fell to the floor in a heap, the shutdown happened so fast that I did not have a chance to get to a chair or the couch. After what felt like minutes my suit started to power up again. After I pulled myself off the floor, I pulled up a systems diagnostic and I find that it said it was all good. I would have to ask Halsey what she did. It was time to leave and go get the girls.

~x~

Destiny and I were sitting in the shuttle slowly making our way to Halsey's station. She was still half asleep and I was bored, flying the shuttle was mostly autopilot. So I just sat there.

"So do you know where Cortana is at?" Destiny asked.

"She is staying over at Johns, I sent her a message telling her to meet my at the station."

"OK." She stood up and walked over from the co-pilots seat and climbed onto my lap. "So why does Halsey want us there?"

"I don't really know, she wanted to talk to me about Reach, also someone wants to meet us."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

"OK." She put her arm around my neck and leaned her head on my chest, I had my helmet off and her arm felt warm.

We sat there like that for the rest of the short trip. It was one of the last quiet moments we would have for a very, very long time.

~x~

It was hectic on the station, there were people everywhere. Civilians, UNSC, ONY, just so many people doing lots of things. I had never seen Halsey's station with people, it was just Halsey, Cortana and I. We made it to Halsey's office.

"Whats going on here?" Destiny Asked Halsey.

"Not important, where is Cortana?" Halsey said while signing about a paper a second.

"I sent her a message to meet us here, I don't think she got it though."

"Why not? She has her phone on her at all times. She would reply very fast no matter what time it was."

"She is with john."

"Oh?" she stopped working and she looked up from her desk for a second and then went back to work. "She will hear of it later, and don't worry about talking about reach, we will get to that later. Your going to be busy for the next days, you all will be."

"Doing what?" Destiny asked her.

"To get ready... we are leaving earth. So it can recover."

* * *

><p>There's Chapter nine, and I will let the reviewers decide the best man. but I need more than three votes for one person.<p>

There's three of them, Doug, Anthony and Adam.


	10. Back In The Matrix

What's this? Two chapters in one month? The pigs must be flying in a frozen hell. I am starting school again on the 15th of august. So I decided to put two out now if I miss a month. Enjoy! (^_^) I still need reviews for the best man.

* * *

><p>"Wait wait wait... what? We are leaving earth behind?" Destiny asked before I could.<p>

"Everyone decided that is whats best if the earth is to recover, but we are not just leaving it now. We have stuff to do before we do leave, Max I need to be ready to drop in 20 minutes. Rachel you need to make your way to the room you had here before. Can you do that?" Halsey said taking command.

"I think so."

"OK, I will have Cortana meet you there when she gets here. Adam go get ready. I will meet you at the pod bay."

"OK" I said leaving the room with destiny following me. After we left the office I turned left and I started to walk, but Destiny grabbed my hand and pulled me back. I turned around and she started to hug me, she was short compared to me with my spartan body. So I got down on one knee and I took my helmet off. She hugged me again and I hugged back. After a minute she kept arms around me and she tilted her head back and we looked into each others eyes, then she used one hand and she pulled my head down and we kissed. It was not a long kiss, it was just sweet and short. But I wish it could have been longer. But there was no time, I had to go get ready.

~x~

I was getting the various supply's ready when Halsey walked in.

"You wont need any of the survey equipment this trip Max. you just need your suit and the standard jump gear." Halsey said as she got a reentry pack down from a rack and she handed it to me.

"What am I going down for?" I asked her as I attached it and synced it to my controls, the HUD showed everything was working the way it should have.

"You are landing on the surface and we will send a Pelican in by remote after you. There will be a large amount of plants in it with the nutrients and water it will need for the next 5 years, you need to plant them so there is a natural terraform effect."

"How is they're going to be enough water for the next 5 years?"

"Don't worry about that right now, if you want I can explain it later."

"OK" I got into the closest pod and started to power it up.

"Hey, Max?" Halsey said as she was logging in to a computer terminal.

"Yeah?"

"Be careful..."

"I always am" I said as the door shut ending the conversation.

The pod slid into place and then the drop began. Everything was going normally until I was halfway through the mesosphere. Then things got bumpy, really bumpy. A few warnings came on and from there on things got worse faster and faster, first the temperature warnings sounded then the computer started to flicker on and off then it just lost all power. There were still the panels for the status of the pod, but with out the computer I would have to fire the brakes myself. I would not have to worry about that because the shielding temp lights turned on and then the shielding failed. But before it did I turned my energy shields up to the max. The pod fell apart like a cracker, and it burned up in the atmosphere, as it did the landing rockets exploded and I was pushed even faster towards the earth.

~x~ (Destiny's point of view)

I... kissed him... In the six months we had gone out we had never kissed. It was surprising to the entire school, most girls at my age were already mothers or were going to be one soon. I had given Adam hints that I wanted to make out, but he ether did not get it or he was being nice to me... he might not have gotten it.

I was walking to my room and I was not having a easy time finding it. I finally made it there a few minutes later, Cortana was already there. There was a very large man there with her. He was in a chair next to Cortana, it looked like he was asleep.

"Hey, what took you so long?" She asked me.

"I got lost, made a few wrong turns."

"OK, can you help me with something?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"I'm... plugging myself in to the computer mainframe." She pulled out a black box with cables attached. "I have so much work to do and no time to do it."

"Is it safe?" I ask her.

"Mother is the one who gave it to me, so it would have to be." She replied "But I need to be unconscious when the probes are put on me. And I am not waking John up, this is the first time he has slept in about 2 weeks."

"OK..." I sighed. "what needs to be done?"

"I am going to put my self under for a while, when I am out I need you to put the pads on my head and turn on the computer, I will mark where the pads go."

"OK." that can't be too hard.

After she had injected herself with the drugs she was out fast, I placed the sticky pads where Cortana had drawn on herself with a marker, I got the computer on with out it exploding so I think I git the job done. The computer started to hum, and on a screen on the wall Cortana showed up, not the human but the purple looking Cortana that was in the games.

"This feels great, but I miss my body already..." Cortana said spinning around. "Alright, I need to work."

The screen shut off and then a few minutes later she came back up.

"Hey Rachel? Max's Pod is about to drop if you want to watch."

A panel slid back on the back wall and there was a window on the other side. I walk over and look out to see the side of the station. There was a small thud. "Pod away." Cortana said from her screen. The pod slowly drifted towards the earth and it speed up. After a minute there was a bright light around the pod and then there was no light, and no pod... a small poof and then nothing else...


	11. REN

How about that? I got a chapter done and I am not behind schedule. still need reviews for the best man.

Species Unknown, you can vote again if you want.

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><p>I was knocked unconscious by the blast momentary. When I woke up, I was falling faster then the speed of sound. I know this by the cone shaped white vapor around me. Thankfully the energy shields were holding, if not, I would burn up in the atmosphere. I was falling back first with my head turned to its side. I have to slow myself down. I flip over and position myself into the spread eagle. I did a quick systems check and the reentry pack was still in working order. I had to use it some how without sending myself back into space. There were two stages to a reentry pack, and a drag chute that would have deployed by now if I had not used a pod. The first stage was a SBR slowdown for the top part of the atmosphere, the second was like a high powered jet pack. So if I was not going fast enough I would fly back into space.<p>

I straiten myself out and go head first. Still going faster then the speed of sound I realize that I was over the grand canyon, I had a idea. I access the REN pack and detach the drag. I then do something that it seems only a totally insane person would do. I aimed for the canyon and fired the first stage. I was still a mile above it, now I spread my arms out like wings and my direction starts to change. The top of the canyon passes me and I start the second stage. I would have a little more control now. I turn some corners and swear I scraped my boot. I then pull up and out of the canyon and I start to slow down, as I slow past mach 1 the loud and famous boom surrounds me. Then reversing trust , I stop to land at the top of a hill.

After taking in the scene I jog to the old visitor center for the grand canyon that doubled as a train station. My grandmother once took me to the canyon, it was great. Even if I was only 9. I walk inside and the floor boards creak under the weight of my suit and I. There were old plastic coffee mugs and cheap photo frames for sale on the shelves. I look closely at on of the frames and it still had unbroken glass inside. Then I see some sort of movement reflected in the glass. I turn around and I see a child coming at me with a knife. I tuck and roll off to the side and turn back around and grab the child's wrist.

"Who are you?" I ask, I could not tell if it was a boy or a girl because of its long hair, and the cloth mask it was wearing.

"êtes-vous là pour vous aider?" The child asked me in a small voice. It sounded like a boys voice.

Crap, he is speaking french. I took one class and I did not remember that much. I think he said 'help'

Wait... why would he even be alive, nothing could breath in this atmosphere. I raise my index finger to my mouth. Even with the helmet I think he understood. I let go and slowly stood up. I Turn on my radio.

-Max266 calling moeder van de uitvinding- it was the name of Halsey's station, she wanted a dutch name.

-Yes max?- Cortana replied.

-I need the translation software for french.-

-Why would you need that?- She asks. I notice the boy is getting a little uneasy, like he wanted to get out of there.

-I found a boy, or should I say he found me. Just send the program and make it fast.-

-Oh... OK. Its on its way.-

The HUD opened a new window and it informed me the program was part of my neural lace. So even with out the suit I could under stand what was being said.

I turn off my radio and look back at the boy.

"What did you say?" I ask him it sounded a little strange and yet I understood what was coming out of my mouth.

"Are you here to help?" he asked me. I heard it in french but my mind said something else.

"Yes" Not really knowing if there was anything I could do. I kneel back down to his eye level. "How have you lived all these years? In this place? I would have thought the glassing would have destroyed everything."

"Not everything, I'll tell you everything later but now we have to go!" He said as it suddenly got darker outside.

He grabbed my wrist and took my to the back of the shop. He then grabbed the side of a bookcase of the back wall and started pulling. There were a few groans and then nothing happened.

"Its stuck!" He started to kick the bottom of the bookcase

I placed both of my hands on his shoulders and I gently pushed him aside. I then gripped the bookcase and pulled, it groaned and then gave. It swings open and the boy runs in dragging me with him. The Bookcase closed by itself and before the room plunged into darkness, I saw a radiation symbol.

~x~ Doug's point of view.

I was sitting on my cot in the fallout shelter near the train station, there was not much to do, I had already gotten the feeding done for the Pigs, I could go see if there was a open spot in the hydroponics department for the day. I need to buy the electricity to charge my phone, not that I could call anyone, I just had some games on it. There was less and less power to share with some of the pigs dying in the past few months. The pigs provided the methane to fuel the generators. I had been here for about three weeks and I was already working harder then some of the elders that are in charge of the complex.

I decided to go work another shift, I get up and put on my yellow jumpsuit, it was a clean suit so the plants would not get infected with something. I then walk to the three elevators that run throughout the complex. There was a small commotion down another hallway, I think it was next to the entrance.

I saw Wallace running for the crowd near the entrance. "Hey! Wallace! What's going on down there?" I ask shaking my thumb at the crowd.

"There's someone from the outside."

I was stunned for a moment. I was told that it was impossible to live outside...

I might as well check it out. I leave the elevator bank and walk down the hallway to see who was here from the outside.

There was a big crowd surrounding whoever it was. I push my way through without much trouble, there were not many people that were my size. I see a flash of gold and green. And then I see myself being reflected in a helmet worn by person bigger then me. He was wearing a suit of armor that was dark green.

"Who are you?" I ask him.

He then raised his hands to the helmet and turned it to his left. I hear a click and a small hiss. He raised his helmet taking it off. I see short brown hair and a face that looks familiar.

"Long time no see Doug." He said to me.

How did he know my name? I went to bed one day and woke up in this underground shelter. No one from the outside would know me.

"Who are you?"

"I'm hurt." he said. "You don't remember?"

Was it... "Adam?"

"Bingo." he said while putting the helmet back on. "So how long has it been? Four weeks or some amount of years?"

"What do you mean?"

"Hold on" he told me when he raised his hand to the side of his helmet. "Max here... Alright, I will do that when I get the chance. There is a bit of a situation here." He pauses. "Halsey, I need you to get a transport ready for..." he looked at he.

"120" I say

"120 souls." he says looking up at the ceiling.

He then stops talking to who ever was talking to him and looks back at me.

"We need to catch up."


	12. Missing

Just so people know, I removed the previews. so there ma be confusion about what chapter is which, it is the number in the drop down list.

I will have chapter 13 out soon, but it will be shorter then normal.

Please review. d(^_^)b

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><p>I talked with Doug and found out that Destiny and I had been missing on earth, we had been for about 2 years and they have stopped looking for us. My stuff was sold and Doug got my computer. He had very little experience working on computers but he got mine working somehow. It booted up and there was a blinding blue flash and then it worked fine, he went to bed that night and woke up in hydroponics. He had a few dreams like I did and never thought much of it.<p>

I wonder if anyone else tried to work on my computer. If so then they might be on earth or another station. I would have to look for them. I wonder if there is a connection between the dreams. If Doug was having them, then there might be a real link back home. I would talk to Halsey when I got back to the station.

I was talking to the person in charge, his name was Johnsen.

"So why haven't you tried to contact the outside?" I ask him. He was of Cherokee descent. Rare today with so many mixed races.

"We have no radio and Alain was never supposed to go outside. But he went any way, his parents died when he was 4, he is 9 now. Every now and then he will sneak out to go to they're grave. How he survives I don't know. He won't speak to anyone. I think he is mute."

"He spoke to me sir."

He looked at me like I was lying.

"He was speaking French."

"That may be why..." he got up from his desk which was a card table and walked to his door. "Alisa? Will you get Alain for me?" He asked his assistant.

He turned back to me. "Can you talk to him?"

"Yes, is there something you need to know?"

"He never talked at anyone as I said, and I don't think he even talked to his parents. But if he will talk to you then he might find it easier to fit in around here. He is never at ease."

I nodded and stood up.

"Sir, I have a transport ship on the way. It will be here in seven hours. If there is anything that you want to take with you then make it light. I will take care of Alain. You take care of the rest of the colony l."

Alain walked in right then. I switch the French translation program on.

He looked at me and then at Johnsen. He gave a questioning look.

"Alain, this is Max. he was the one who you brought back. He would like to talk with you. Is that OK with you?"

"pour quoi faire?" he asked me. What Johnsen heard was French and this was the first time he had ever heard him, but I heard what he asked me "What for?"

"We are going to leave, and I need your help. Is there a place nearby that is flat and mostly level?"

"Level?" He might not have gotten a good education with nobody speaking French.

"Um..." I move over to the table and I show him the surface of it. "This is flat and Level, I need a big place that is like this, but it needs to be outside." I say using my arms to emphasize the size.

He nodded and walked to a map that was on the wall. He drew a large circle with his finger. "Here."

"Thank you."

I turn to Johnsen who was now pulling data chips from a cabinet.

"I will be with Alain if you need me." I walk over to the map next to Alain and take a picture; I then take his hand gently.

"Can you take me to your room?" I ask him. He nods and drags me off out of the office.

~x~

Alain showed me to his bed, he was a sneaky person he had a hole in the wall that led to his room. I crawl in with barely any room in the hole, but I could stand all the way up in the room. It was dark so I turn on the flashlight on my helmet. There was a cot with a blanket and pillow. In the corner of the room there was a lamp with a small fuel tank on the bottom. He was by it and after a few moments of trying he got it lit up. I turn the flashlight off. Alain sat down on the cot and I sat with him.

"Sorry..." Alain suddenly said.

I turn my head to him. "What for?" I ask.

"I.. tried to hurt you..."

"It's OK. Why did you do that anyway?"

"You looked like the... the sickness..."

The sickness? What was he talking about? I was wearing a high tech piece of equipment that was a dark shade of green and yellow.

I would have to ask him at another time. I have work to do, I need to set up the landing. For the transport ship. I also had the pelican to remotely land.

I pull out the tablet and also a small metal ball from the pouch strapped to the side of my leg, it looked like a normal marble, but I knew different. It was a cave system mapper, it was for any new caves that I found if they were not on the map. All I had to do was drop it in the hole and keep working on my task.

I set it on the ground and start the app that was on the tablet. I hear a quiet and rapid clicking nose emanating from the ball, I press 'start scan', the ball starts to hover in place, it opened up n to four sections. There was one line going horizontally all the way around the ball an then one going virtical. It began to spin in the air and produce a red laser wall to start mapping. It scanned the small room Alain and I were in and then the hole, and then it started working its way through the shelter complex.

I see that Alain was getting tired, he was drooping over and getting that look in his eyes that we all got every once in a while.

"You can lay down if you want Alain." I said moving the pillow next to him. "I will take care of stuff around here." "It's ok I'm not tir..." he started to fall off the bed. I catch him before he hit the ground, I pick him up and place him on the cot and covered him with the blanket.

I go to the corner and sit down cross legged. Not as easy as you would think in a 26 million dollar suit.

I realize I was getting a little tired as well; I don't worry about falling asleep for 2 reasons.

1: I was hidden away in a hole.

2: My suit had a filter system unlike any in the world.

I set a timer for 1 hour and I take a power nap. After I drift off to sleep I dream something that I quickly forgot.

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><p>Edited by General TheDyingTitan<p> 


	13. Escape

I now have a plan put out for the story. I will also be adding some Red vs. Blue into the story. I already have Chapter 14 done and I am going to upload it soon.

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><p>I wake up from my nap and there is two messages on my HUD.<p>

-Scan_complete-

-Message_from-C._Halsey:Received three messages from unknown, need your help, ASDE is useless.-

I pull up the list from the scan, it had made about the soil and minerals. There was a huge concentration of methane gas in one area, another area had a mix of metal, water, and organic life. And then there was a high priority area that had unknown organic materials. I mark that in the new map that I down loaded from the ball and I got up. I would have to check it out before this place is evacuated.

I see Alain still sleeping on the cot, I would have to make this quiet. I turn on the radio and call the station. -Yes max?- Cortana replied.

-Whats the ETA on the transports?-

-There was a bump in the schedule, ETA in two hours.-

-OK, are the masks ready?-

-Yes, the masks will only work for about three to four hours depending on the breathing rate.-

-OK, I will announce that before we exit the complex-

-Is there anything else Max?-

I wanted to tell her about Doug, but ONY could have been listening in on us. The news of the survivors should spark some interest in what is happening.

-Nothing worth mentioning now. If there is something I will call you or just tell you when I get back. Max out.-

-Moeder Van de Uitvinding out.-

My radio clicks off and I stand up and I crawl through the hole into a hallway near the Hydroponics area. The mark was across hydroponics, so I make my way across and find a wall where there should be a door. There were however some symbols on the wall. There was the ONY, Spartan and Artificial Intelligence symbol. And then there was one I knew from watching many episodes of my favorite web series... The Free Lancer symbol.

What was this doing here? I press the three parts of it at the same time, and the wall to the right of it slides open. I look around to see if anyone was watching, there was not. So I enter and the wall slid back into place. There was a light switch on the inside wall, it was kinda dark so I flipped it.

The lights turn on, flicker, I hear a humming sound and then the lights pop. Glass sprinkles down and covers the floor. I realize this could be a trap. The sound of breaking glass would alert anyone not wanting to be disturbed. I wish I had a weapon now, I had almost no training with hand to hand combat. The glass shards were too small to use. I make my way down the hallway being careful with my footsteps. I was about 5 feet away from the the corner when I heard voices. Someone was arguing with another person, a woman. I step closer and closer, and my foot hits some unseen glass. It crunches and the argument stops.

"Hello?" the male voice called out."

"What was that?" the female asked.

"I don't know... but my sensors DID pick up something."

Sensors? What was this guy talking about? Unless... I get out a small mirror and checked around the corner. There were two pedestals on opposite sides of the hallway. And two holograms were looking down the hallway, at me.

"You there, with the mirror. Come out where we can see you." The Brown one said.

The A.I. was represented by a brown colored Spartan, and the other was represented with a dark gray body of a woman. I see no visible weapons on the walls, floors or ceiling. I put a way the mirror. If I was going to be attacked I would have to run for it.

I walked out with my hands up. I see there was a door to a safe behind them, and there was a window on the left side.

"Stand still. I need to confirm you're identity." The gray one said. I was covered in a blue light for a minute and then it shut off.

"Spartan 34 confirmed. Access to labs: 1 through 8 granted. Labs 9 through 11 granted only with permission. Lab 12 access is denied."

I was listed as a Spartan? The door hisses and slowly swings open.

"The A.I. lab is lab 7." the brown one said. "Please do stop by amigo, we do get so lonely."

I make my way down yet another hallway to a elevator, I press the call button and the doors slid open. As I step in I see there are 8 buttons and then a hand scanner. I release the seals on my right hand and I take the glove off. Pressing my hand to the scanner and the doors close.

I then hear a voice recording. "Adam, this is going to be strange but I just need you to listen to me."

I am shocked, is this a recording for another Adam? Or was it for me? The voice was so fuzzy that I could hardly make it out. And it started to play when I used my hand on the scanner...

"The flood is coming back, I don't have enough time to explain, but its coming. You won't understand at first, but it will all make sense later. You're friends are out there and they are the key, get- Crap, I have too go! just get your friends, you will know what to do." The recording cuts out and the elevator starts moving.

-Lab 12 access granted. Enjoy your day director.- A automated voice says through a speaker. The elevator stops and the doors open. I put my glove back on and step off into a room with a decontamination shower and a wall with 3 clean suits. There was a blast door across the elevator, I walk over to the window and look through it.

And then my Nightmares come to life. The room was full of the flood, there were so many infection forms that it really did look like a flood. I had to get out of there before the saw me.

Too late, the flood started to heave themselves against the door. I duck away from the window and jump back into the elevator. I press lab 7 and the door closes. The elevator moves to the lab and opens the doors. There was a computer console on the wall to my right.

"So you are a director. What brings you to this lab complex?" I hear the brown male A.I. ask me. I think someone besides myself would want to talk to them. I walk over to the console and start the process of moving the A.I.'s to 2 of the 3 memory chips that were in the computer ports.

"What are you doing Max-151? You do not have access to-" The gray female cuts him off.

"Don't fight him, the flood just got out! I don't want to be here if it becomes a Gravemind. Max, yank us." Who was I to deny orders? I press start transfer and the console goes dark.

After a moment the screen tells me its done and so I eject the cards and place them in my side pack. I get back into the elevator and press the exit button. The elevator goes up and the doors open I jog out and find the hidden door had a handle on it. I slid it open and step out and close it. I see Doug in his clean suit scanning a nearby plant.

"Doug, get to the air lock. We have to leave now!"

"Whats up?"

"Don't ask, just do!"

He puts the scanner down and starts to make his way out of hydroponics and I do as well . I turn on my radio and call the station. -EMERGENCY! THE FLOOD IS BACK! I REPEAT THE FLOOD IS BACK. DOES ANY ONE COPY? I need the transports here now. Send the masks down in a drop pod.-

I run for Alain's hole and I slid through like I was going for home in baseball. He was still asleep. I pick him up and the cloth that covered his mouth fell out of his pocket. It had a breathing apparatus with a blue light coming from one side. I place it on him and tie it off.

I push him out the hole, I then crawl out myself and pick him up. I start running for the door to the complex. Doug was waiting there with a small bag.

"Doug, take Alain. I have to go get the masks." I said as I am handing him Alain who was now stirring out of sleep. I open the first airlock and go through. After I got out, I set a landing site for the pod. A moment later it landed and opened. I grab the rope that had the masks and pull it back away from the pod. It was set up so if you grab one, you have all of them on one rope. It was that way to minimize risk of more then one person dying.

I run back the the complex and get through the airlock and I find that all the people in the complex had gotten there belongings together, everyone was carrying a small bag of some kind. I turn on the voice amplifier in my suit and I start handing out the masks.

"Everyone, these masks will last four hours, we will not be outside that long, we are going over the ridge to the east to a transport ship that will take us off planet. Everyone sound off! I'm 1."I point at the closest person to me. "You are two. Does anyone not understand?" no one asked questions, they just started counting. I heard someone yell down the hall '121'.

"Everyone stay calm and lets go!" I turn and override the safety and open both sides of the lock. Everyone starts moving, I do as well.

~x~

Nothing happened along the way, everyone made it to the ship in one piece. The pilot had a little trouble lifting off and then it was just a matter of getting into orbit. About halfway there I was looking back at the earth and I see a small poof of greenish yellow. Maybe that is what Alain was talking about, the flood. A hour later we docked at a bio-dome, it was just a park in space. That was the only place big enough for all the survivors on short notice.

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><p>And that is chapter 13. Please review and feel free to ask questions.<p> 


	14. was that?

Chapter 15 will be done soon. I am thinking of redoing the first chapter, what do you guys think?

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><p>Adam Davids point of view.<p>

I was standing in my newly earned gear, Helmet, suit, etc. I had checked everything out and everything was in order. I don't think anything was tampered with, but one could never know for sure. I hated the situation that I had gotten myself into, I had woken up in someones office. Some guy named Holland, he had taken me in and somehow I had pissed him off. He enlisted me into the ODST's and I have been training for two weeks and now I was in a squad of ODST's that was newly formed. There were four of us.

Standing by a view port looking at earth was never easy. There was a spot that has shown up overnight in Arizona. Now with the flood showing up it might be glassed again. The Elites had gone away looking for the last of the covenant.

"Hey, rookie. We are needed in the briefing room." Jack, the leader said. He was the only one in our group that had gone on a mission.

"What for?" I ask him.

"We are dropping in to defend some sort of data center."

"I thought that everything was glassed."

"Same here, lets go."

We leave the room and walk down a hall to the briefing room. Along the way I heard someone yelling, the voices were a man and a woman. The man sounded familiar. Other then that I don't know what was happening. I thought I heard the man say something about teleportation. Jack and I get to the briefing room and we sit down at a table. Jorge and Jeff were already there and waiting.

After a few minutes of waiting the door opened and a woman in a white lab coat and gray hair walks out. Closely followed by a man in MJOLNIR armor who was carrying a long black weapons case. The moment he walked in I could feel tension that could have been cut with a knife build up. I look at Jack and he is typing on the data pad on his wrist. He sends me a message on mine. It read -the ODST and Spartans do not have a good history and lets leave it at that.- I nod and turn off the pad.

The woman was wearing a pair of glasses and absentmindedly drinking a cup of coffee, she was just looking off in the distance. The man in the armor walked to the wall behind the woman and rested against it. After a minute the woman took off her glasses and cleared her throat.

"Men, I know you have been told that all of the surface of the earth was burned and glassed. While that is true, There are a few places that are not completely burned. One such place is a A.I. Storage center. Sometimes it is cheaper to store them then it is to delete them. We fear the flood will find this center and use the knowledge to become a gravemind. You're job is to stop the data from the A.I.s falling into the floods hands at all costs." The woman says to us. "You will delete the data or recover it. Recover if possible."

"What happens if we can't do that?" Jeff asks. "Both deleting or recovering?"

"Then you will be given 5 minutes to get out of there before a FENRIS nuclear warhead is detonated."

Everyone was silent.

"Max-151 is in charge on this mission. I want to hear nothing about issues with rank." she turned and left us.

Jorge stood up and walked around to the Spartan. He raised his hand, I held my breath. I thought that a fight was about to break out. Jorge then shook Max's hand. "Sir, I know we have had our troubles. But that is in the past, if we are going up against the flood. So if you take care of my back, then I will take care of yours." Jorge told the Spartan.

Max-151 nodded and stood strait up. "Be ready to drop in five or you will be left behind!" He ordered us. It was the same voice that was yelling a little while ago.

We get up to turn and leave. "David, stay here for a minute."

The rest of my squad leaves for the equipment room. I stay behind and see what Max wants.

"Yes sir?" I ask him.

"You are a sniper right?" I nodded, I had gotten the Highest scores without computer assistance. It was comparable to to that of a sniper that had gotten 10+ years of training.

"Then this is for you." He hands me the case he had been carrying. "Bring a fission power pack." He walks out without saying another word.

I carry the case to the equipment room and everyone is getting ready. I place it on a table and open it. Inside there was a jet black sniper rifle that had a power cable where there should be a magazine. There was also a spare barrel. I get a fission pack and I also grab a pair of SMG's and a couple grenades. Everyone had gotten a weapon and a secondary. The others had a minute to say there good byes over the phone to there loved ones, I had no one. Not even my brother. I got in my pod and prepared to drop.

~x~ (Adam/Max's POV)

Damn it! Was That Adam? I could not tell with the guys helmet on. I had to find out.

Halsey said that she could not tell me the real reason why there was a A.I. storage facility, but the way that some one had been getting there was by teleportation. And I think that is how all this started. Me being here, Doug, Destiny. All because of one guy named Leonard. When I get... If I get back that guy will wished that he stayed with the flood the first time.

This would be very hard fighting the flood, even John had a tough time. But he was out of commission, so were the other Spartan's. I had written a good bye letter for Destiny and I gave it to Cortana in case I... went Missing in action...

I got my weapons and got into a pod.

-Marines, we are mean. We are very mean- the radio blasted.

We dropped.


	15. Dear Phil

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Man, my chapters keep getting longer and longer. I did most of this chapter on my tablet that has no word processor, so if you spot a wrong word or something out of place, please tell me.

And I have a question... Can anyone spot the portal reference?

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><p>(14 hours earlier)<p>

"Adam!" Destiny jumps on me as soon as I walk into the apartment. "I heard what happened, is it true the flood is back?"

"Yes" I tell her. "Doug was down there, he arrived about two weeks ago."

"Doug?!" She practically yelled. "How did he get here?"

"He said that we went missing and that our stuff was sold, or at least mine was. He got my computer."

I put her down and take off my helmet. "How long have we been missing?" She asked me.

"... Two years..."

"Two years!? What have we missed?"

"I don't know."

"What about my parents?"

"I don't know. All that I do know is we have missed 2 years, beyond that, you're guess is as good as mine."

"What about Doug? Where is he now?"

"Still in quarantine, he might be out by the morning."

"Well let's go see him." She suggested. I look at the clock and see that it's getting late.

"You go ahead if you want, I am tired." I tell her.

"Oh, OK..." she sounded disappointed. "Never mind, we can stay here then. Do you want to watch something?"

"Sure, but I may fall asleep." I warned her. I took off the rest of my armor and borrowed a shirt from Cortana's dresser, she had both man's and woman's clothing, but I keep my inner skin suit on because she did not have a pair of pants that would have fit me. We started to watch another movie on Cortana's T.V., but I paid little attention to it. I was zoning in and out of sleep, I look over and see that Destiny had passed out. I pick her up and carry her to her and I place her under the covers, and as I pull away she softly grabs my shirt and mumbles something incoherent. My shirt slips from her fingers; I lean over and kissed her forehead. I leave her too to pass out on the couch.

I started to dream. I am wearing a suit of some sort, my vision was foggy, it gray with odd shapes on it. In front of me, there were two floating lights. One was blue and the other was orange. I heard a voice that sounded like it could have been an aging fathers voice, somewhat deep but not by much. "We deserve to be forgotten." Then another voice responded to the first. It sounded younger. "Perhaps... Perhaps..." Was that 343 taking? I realize the lights were really the care takers of the halos, the Forerunner A.I.'s.

Then my vision flashed like it did when my computer blew up sending Destiny and I here. I find myself on the ground with someone's hand holding my head.

"Good, you are awake." A woman said to me. I open my eyes to a woman with blond hair and deep blue eyes. A soft aging face of pale complexion. Behind her was a blue sky with some clouds and a ship, not human or covenant from what I could see.

"Where am I?"

"Do not worry about that." The woman said.

"Who are you?" I ask her.

"I am the Liberian, what you call a forerunner."

"If you are a forerunner, then where am I?"

She sighed. "Mount Kilimanjaro, now listen Adam, because time is short. Everything is planed, but even time cannot control the flood, and even that is not what you face. You will face something that is not evil, but will not be easy to overcome." "What are you talking about?" I ask her. "You, Destiny, Doug, everyone has a part to play, even if you don't want to. Everything is planed; your genes are not some random set of codes made from two sets. Adam and Eve are on place, people will believe there's a god with a plan, I am not a god. But I do have a plan, an eventuality. You believe this is a dream, but you are wrong, this is a message."

"What do you mean?" My ears start ringing and my vision flashes white again. My vision clears and I am standing in a blue dome underwater, my friends were standing a few feet away from me, all of them were in tuxedo, I was in one also. There were people sitting on rows, some I knew, others not sold much, I see my parents in the front row, and Destiny's mom next to them. I had no idea what was going on. I hear someone cough next to me, I look over and I see Adam David tugging at his long sleeve shirt under the tuxedo, looking are me, then back to the sleeve. I check my sleeve and I find a piece of paper rolled around my arm behind my wrist.

It said: You are at your own wedding, don't freak out. Destiny will be out on a minute, you won't be the one to say 'I do' however. The date is 12/17/2020. The next part of the dream will be exciting, but after that I can't say... good luck.

I hear the very famous tune of 'here comes the bride' play and I look up to see Destiny, she was in a wedding dress. By her side, her father was there, and on her other side was her step dad.

I wake up on the couch and I see Destiny with her blanket shuffling towards me, she pulled the blanket up and swung it over me as she crawled on top of me. I feel like I am slipping into sleep again...

I snap wide awake when I realize that I was in a bed. I look around to see that I was in a house on some planet. Earth? I feel a warm body next to me, it was Destiny, the older her, I feel a ring on my finger, I look at the ring and in the darkness I see gold. I lay back down and close my eyes. A moment later Destiny shot straight up and said "Wow" in the voice of someone getting off an adrenalin rush. "Adam, wake up."

"What is it?" I ask her.

"Its time." She said. I look back over at her and I see something unexpected. Destiny was pregnant. And if she said it was time... I get up and search for something with a calendar, I find a phone and I turn it on. The date was 10/4/2021. My vision flashed again and I was in a pelican flying straight down at an amazing rate.

Some Flood combat forms were falling with me. I take the gun control and blast them. Then I woke up on the couch again, this time with the alarm buzzing. The Destiny I know asleep on top of me.

~x~ David's POV

"David, take position on the roof of the school." Max orders me.

"Already gone" I say as I leave the lobby, I still can't believe that the A.I. center was under the Simon Kenton High school, my high school. Maybe it was built after my computer zapped me here. 2 flights of stairs and a quick ladder climb later I was on the roof with my rifles. There were a few new things that one would expect after a few hundred years. There was a green house dome, solar panels that were not of much use at the moment with the fog that had shown up, and a water collection system.

The air was calm with a stench of mildew. I set up a small snipers nest and I get the power pack running. It hummed quietly as I plugged in the rifle that Max gave me on the station. The power indicator on the rifle and my HUD flashes green, I lie down and get into position. After a while I hear a loud thump in the distance.

Then another…

And another…

-Get ready; the flood should be getting close.- Max radios to everyone.

As if God had heard that and he wanted to increase the drama, a breeze picked up and the fog started to clear up a little. After a few minutes there was a shape that could be seen in the distance. It looked like a mountain, but this mountain was moving. I zoom in and I can make outlines on flood forms, thousands maybe millions of them. The light got more intense, I look up and I see the fog was taking a shape. Three straight edges, like a triangle in the sky. I hear the solar panels hum around me as they started to generate electricity, the beeping of long forgotten electronics.

I aim for a flood body, at the distance they were at, about a three foot drop should be fine.

-Remember, we need to keep them back, don't spread you're self to thin David.- Max says. –open fire- I place my index finger on the trigger and a laser turns on. Not much of a use at this range.

I brace for the kick and hold my breath.

*Click*

I felt no kick, no loud bang sounded, the only noise to sound was a loud buzzing noise. I missed what I was aiming for, but the flood behind my target was on fire with a dinner plate sized hole in its chest. The gun was a Spartan laser in a rifle. I aim again, this time without the drop.

~x~ (Adam/Max's POV)

I placed plastic explosives on the door to room #115, a storage room under the main lobby. Once I get to a safe distance, I detonate the plastic. There was no alarms, no flashing lights. I walk in and do a quick sweep of the room, nothing that could be classified as dangerous, although the red stain on the slanted ceiling was a bit odd.

There was a freelancer seal on the floor, it was wider then a bed, some crates covered the edges. Jeff was standing by the door with his MA5C raised, it looked over his shoulder at me. "Find anything sir?" He asked, he was whispering.

"Nothing of importance, and the Flood won't hear you from this distance."

"Maybe not, but I don't want to risk it sir. My grandfather said there was once a great sickness that got smarter with the more it claimed. He was right about a lot of the things he said, crazy, but right."

"I wouldn't listen to the rambles of a loose mind, he could have just said somethings to scare you when you were young, where do you think Greek mythology came from?" I say as I lay a hand against one of the crates doing a scan for magnetic alarms, nothing turned up. I moved on to another crate.

"He was right about the order of human colones that the covenant would burn, from Harvest to earth." He said with a voice that would have made Halsey ponder if there are really psychics that can predict coming events. "Do you need help with those crates? Or are you going to keep petting them?"

My scans turned up nothing, so I brought up my right leg and kicked. The crate would have survived if the wall behind it was about 10 more meters away. "Nope, I got this. Use your HUD and keep a eye on the others."

"Yes Sir." He turns his head back to the hallway.

I moved the other crates out of the way and I see a thick layer of dust covering the floor, only disturbed where I had been. Now was a good a time as any to try one of the upgrades from Halsey and the tablet.

I pull up a screen and I imagine a animation, the screen played it back and my helmet beeped confirming it was capable of doing this. I step to the center of the freelancer symbol and neural-command the program to run.

My energy shield power indicator dropped and my suit crackled with energy as the shields reformed into a fan just above the ground. The shield/fan was spinning, but not nearly as fast as it should have been. I boost the power and the blades spin faster, fast enough to lift me up as well as remove the dust. I quickly shut down the shield system altogether. I land with a loud thud.

Jeff heard it and had turned around, twisting down to one knee with his rifle raised and aimed.

"Stand down, I did that." I order him.

He went back to watching the hall. I look down and I see the inside of the the symbol was starting to glow light blue. My HUD shows a incoming transmission.

-Impact sensors activated, access will not be allowed until identity is provided.- F.I.L.S.S said.

I seal my helmet and respond "Max-151"

-Welcome back assistant director. It's been a long time, how have you been?-

"Fine, open the entrance."

-But sir, my scan seems to indicate a flood presence under 2Km away, should I activate automated defenses?-

"... Yes." I switch over to my teams radio. -Everyone, form up on me. David, cease fire and bring your equipment with you.-

-Aw man, I just got the hang of this thing too.- David responded. That really sounded like Adam from the other side. It could be him, his last name was David.

-Stow it, all of you be here in under 3.-

1 minute later David was the last to arrive, I unsealed my helmet so they could hear me talk.

"FIL, open up."

"Phil?" that was the first time Jack had said anything to me.

"Its short for F.I.L.S.S." I tell him as the floor slides back to revile a ladder. "F. I. L." I spell it out for him.

"Sir" F.I.L.S.S. was using a speaker system this time. "The event you described happened and the prisoner is in detention block C."

"Prisoner?" David asked me a question that I had no answer to.


	16. Dreams

This is not a chapter, this is something that had been stuck in my head for the past few days. it is part of the story, and its in third person.

* * *

><p>"Where are we?" Chief asked Cortana after pushing off the debris that was on top of him. He was kneeling on the ground, there were many things burning around him, ship parts, computer, bodies.<p>

"Checking coordinate impact data-we have asked you to give up you're family." Chief shakes his head "you're childhood" He pulled Cortana's chip out. "you're future"

"Cortana?" Chief holds her out in front of him.

"I'm sorry, it's the crash, I'm fine." She hurried the last part.

"Something was wrong even before we left the dawn."

"Chief, really. I'm fine" Her voice was crackling.

John stood up and held Cortana out and up to eye level. He tilted his head forward and he pushed "Cortana..."

Her voice cleared up. "I was put into service 8 years ago..." She looked down away from Johns visor.

"8 years..." John turned his head as if he was looking somewhere other then the impact around them. His arm drifted down and Cortana was level with his chest again.

Cortana looked back up at him "A.I.'s deteriorate after 7 Chief..."

He brought her back up to level with his visor. There was a pause between them.

"Halsey." John said with the tiniest hint of panic in his voice.

"Chief" Cortana tried to stop him.

"We need to find Halsey" With the same panic

"Chief please..."

"She made you, she can fix you." He said with growing confidence.

"I won't recover from rampancy Chief." She sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

"If we can just get back to earth, and find Halsey. She can fix this."

"Don't make a girl a promise you can't keep..."

Overhead, 2 Banshies and a Phantom flew past.

"We need to move." Cortana said.

~x~

"Cortana... are you OK?" John gently shook Cortana's shoulder trying to wake her up. They were laying in the bed at Chiefs place. Cortana was wearing her t-shirt and a pair of shorts, John was only wearing a pair of jeans with modified pockets that were bigger then normal. Only a thin sheet was on the bed, pushed down by Cortana's legs mid dream. John had been awake all night, he stopped him self at first when Cortana was having a nightmare, but it had gone on to long for him to stand.

"mm.. wha?" Cortana mumbled.

"You were having a nightmare. You said a few things in your sleep. Covenant, Missile, metal planet... Rampancy."

"Oh, its nothing." Cortana gently pushed Johns hand away. "Just a dream."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Cortana sat up and pushed herself against the headboard. "Well... We were back on the dawn, you were still in cryo-sleep, I was still a A.I." Cortana rubbed her neck. "Someone had scanned us and it set off a few systems, I was worried about waking you up for nothing. Then the scan got more intensive, setting off a few alarms. I woke you up."

"Then what?" Chief asked.

"We got out of there, the covenant had found us, and the truce had ended or something because they attacked us. There was a group of covenant ships around the dawn, they did not spot us until we launched a missile at them. They're shields were off and the missile worked. The dawn was in orbit of a forerunner world. The outer layer opened up and a gravity well pulled us in."

"Outer layer?"

"Yes, the well pulled us and the surrounding debris in. We did not exactly have a landing vehicle... After you regained conciseness, you asked where we were and I... I had an episode."

"...Rampancy?" John whispered. Cortana nodded.

"I had been online for 8 years in my dream. And you know A.I.'s go rampant after 7." She said quietly. "You said Halsey would be able to fix me, but we had no idea where we were. I tried to tell you that it would not work, but you stuck too it."

"I would have..."

Cortana sighed and pulled herself closer to John, he stayed still, Cortana risked it and rested her head on Johns chest, listening to the beats of a strong heart, the almost silent breathing of Spartan lungs.

"So who was that with you earlier? The man, he said he was Halsey's assistant. I have the feeling he was lying." He slowly stroked her hair, he had never done anything but fight the Covenant with Cortana, never mind a human Cortana. He was nervous to say the least. Years of training was the only thing hiding that from her.

"He is, but not a normal one, he is a Spartan like you."

"Was he in the group of children after me?"

"No, it's a long story. One I can't fully explain."

"You can try..."

"Do you remember the boy and girl who showed up from nowhere?"

"The teenagers, yes."

"That was the boy. He underwent augmentations, he goes down to the planet and collects samples."

"How did he survive the augmentations?"

"There safer now."

"What about the girl?"

"She shares an apartment with me"

Cortana pulled herself on top of John, back side up, she looked in his eyes. "What happened? Training that was considered almost torture from the age of six. You lost everything, your squad, your brother and sister Spartans, Keys, Johnson. What was it about me that kept you sane?"

There was a pause from John while he collected his thoughts.

"You were the only thing I had, the only one telling me what to do. You kept me company through most of the worst, I was able to think clearly with you in my head. When you were in the Halo control room, I was in the jungle, I was lost for hours, then when I did find the complex, I was still lost. I would have had no idea that I was setting off a weapon unless you stopped me."

Cortana nodded and placed her head on Johns chest again.

"You know we don't have to be apart again..."

"Yeah..." John put his arms around Cortana and squeezed her softly. Cortana reached over and turned off the lamp on the nightstand.

"What are you doing?" John asked, slowly sitting up.

Cortana pushed him back down "Shh... Trust me..."


	17. Memory's

Feel free to ask questions about this chapter, I did a very large chunk at 3 in the morning with little coffee. I proof read the hell out of this and I think it turned out OK.

Not my longest chapter in words, but it is in page length. :D

* * *

><p>"Hey! Get me out of here!"<p>

Why did it have to be him? Austin… he was one of my friends that was fun, but with a side of crazy.

"Hey! Fucktard! I can hear you out there."

And there's the crazy. Can't blame him though, He has Aspergers, it was not a good thing that he was here, Just one more body to take back up. But there might be something I can use him for.

I switch on the polarizer for the window between Austin and I so he could see me.

"Ha!" he saw me. "I knew someone was there."

"Calm down."I tell him. "How long have you been here?"

"About two weeks, why are you holding me?"

"I set this up to keep you safe." it was the only thing I could think of saying that

"Why do you look like you are something out of halo?"

I turn on my radio, I had to try something. -David, make your way to detention block C.-

-on my way.-

A moment later Austin spoke up again with one more question. "And who have I been talking to, she won't give me a name, she has me call her the state-" David, the possible Adam walked in at that point. He got one look at Austin. "Well fuck."

David took off his helmet and placed it on a box next to me, I get my answerer. He walked over to the glass. "Austin?"

"Yeah, hey Adam..."

"When did you get here?" Adam asked.

"About two weeks ago... You?"

"Same"

"Whats with the getup?"

"I'm a ODST now..."

"Like from Halo?"

I spoke up this time. "Yes, do you want to tell him or should I?"

"What? Tell him what?" Austin asks. Adam gave me a questioning look.

I take off my helmet and show my face.

"Welcome to the Halo universe. F.I.L.S.S., let Austin out please."

The wall raised and Austin stepped out speechless, Adam was not as shocked with the fact that he was in the halo universe.

"Adam?" Austin asked me after a moment.

"Yep, been a few weeks."

"Try a few years, what happened to you?"

"That's what I want to know also." Adam David said.

"I got Spartan augmentations and a mark-4 armor." I tell them.

"weren't the mark 7's supposed to be out by now? Adam asked me.

"Halsey stayed off that subject."

"Halsey? You mean that bossy woman from reach?" Austin says.

"Yes, and I would not say that in front of her if I were you" I tell him

"Sir, a incoming traveler will be arriving in storage room B momentary." F.I.L.S.S. told me.

"Adam, get to storage room B now. The others are there, tell them to evacuate from there now. If they ask why, tell them RAD34." Adam starts to leave. "Hey!" I yell before he gets far. He turns around to see why I was yelling at him. The answer smacked into his chest after I threw it at him. He forgot his helmet.

"Austin, follow me" I put my helmet back on.

"Whats RAD35?" he asks.

"Radioactive device, 35 stands for unknown because there is no official number for teleporters."

I walk him to the crane control room over looking the storage room. Although room was used loosely, warehouse was more like it. Everyone else was setting crates in a barricade around the receiving pad. I switch on the intercom system so I could hear them. Adam walked in and told them the news, they left without question. Right after they did, the teleporter came to life. Bolts of Electricity shoots out from the center and then curve back to the center above the floor. The light spreads out and takes shape of a person wearing armor, he was kneeling down. Then the intense white calmed down into a light blue color. After a moment the lighting dissipated and the body remained.

It was Carolina, the freelancer.

I signal Austin to get down. I get down as well hiding behind the controls. I know that she could kill us quickly if she saw us as a threat. But what in the world could I say?

"Man... We have to stop using that thing, I swear I saw that cat again."

That was church, this might not be as bad as is seems. I get up. I had one chance.

"Church, memory is the key" I say through the intercom system.

Next thing I knew, Carolina was behind me holding a knife to my neck. The glass shards from the window were still falling by the time I realized that. Kelly would have been impressed.

"Who are you?" Carolina asked pressing harder with the knife.

"Max-151"

"A Spartan? How did you get in here?"

"Ask F.I.L.S.S."

"I am asking you how- … Church wants to know how you know about the memory."

"I can't explain that."

Church's hologram appeared on the desk in front of me. "Come on dude, do you really want to piss her off?"

Then something happened that I hoped would not happen. Austin made him self known.

"Carol?" I hear Austin say.

I feel Carolina loosen her grip in the slightest way, I don't take advantage of that. I want to earn her trust, not her knife.

"Austin..." I hear her say gently.

"You know her?" I ask Austin.

"She is the one who was talking to me while I was locked up."

"Who let you out?" Carolina asked.

"I did, now would you mind letting me go?" I tell Carolina.

She lets me go and backs up. "How did you get him out? Only the assistant director and above could have gotten him out."

"I am the assistant director, at least that's what FIL says. Right F.I.L.S.S.?" I ask the computer.

"Yes sir, you are the assistant director. You were there at my activation, although this is the first time I have seen you since then."

Carolina was silent. Austin walked over and stood between us.

"Lets get back to this subject later, there's Flood out side trying to break in to this place." Carolina said.

"I second that." I hear Adam say from the doorway. Carolina took a quick look at Adam and then back to me.

"Why are you here?" Carolina asked me.

"We are here to retrieve any A.I. data to prevent it from falling into the floods hands. What about you?"

She pulls out a few sticks of C4 and holds them in clear view. "I'm here to break him out." She nodded at Austin "I already got the A.I. data, we can leave now."

"Is there another way out of here other then the teleporter?" I ask her.

"Yes, but why? There's nothing wrong with the teleporter."

"It may be linked with a few... Disappearances." I tell her. It was not a lie...

"How?"

"Later, now about the other way out?"

"There is a bay of YSS-1000's that were being striped down, but the team only got through the weapons, they are still space capable though."

"Good. Get down there and spin up the drives. I will meet you there with my team after we pull FIL's data." I tell her.

"Hold on, what makes you think you are in charge of me?" She asked he. The entire time we were talking Austin, Adam, and the others were watching us going back and forth like it was a game of tennis.

"I want to get everyone out of here and off the earth alive. You included, Austin is under my care, if you want to help us, then join us."

~x~

20 minutes later we were in the launch bay and there was a problem, the arm that held the Sabre's during launch was not working. And the only way to get it to work was for someone to use a mark one suit, they were never used in combat, just training and moving heavy equipment and Austin (for reasons beyond my comprehension) was the only one that could drive it.

Carolina and I had another tennis match over who was staying last, Austin stepped in and said he would ride with Carol (his words not mine).

"David, you're with me." I tell him. "Jack, Jeff, Jorge. You three go a head of us. The first Sabre has a third seat. Go back to Cairo station, I need David for another propose."

"Yes sir." the three of them said.

The Sabre slid into place, and the suited up Austin shoved the arm into place.

The men got in and took off. Final I got free time, I took off my helmet and turned to the others.

"Carolina, there's something you need to know." I say to her. I see Austin raises the canopy and listens in. "Austin, did you tell her about home?"

"I told her about my xbox practically imploding. And me ending up in a cell that would not unlock for anyone." He shouted from his suit.

"Carolina, did you believe any of it?" I ask her.

"No"

"Well believe it. My computer seems to be the first one to blow up sending me and my girlfriend here."

"Why would you be telling me this? I don't care about you guys."

"You care about Austin." Adam said this before I could.

"What makes you think that?"

"you cleaned out the data, why else would you be here." I said. "And you said that you were here to get him out."

"... Damn" she shook her head.

"Would you come back to Halsey's station with us? There are things I need to talk to my friends, you are welcome to join us, church too." I ask her.

"OK, but Halsey may not like my being there." she said as the next Sabre slid into place.

"Why?" Adam asked her

"Halsey and my father were rivals while the war was going happening."

"Who is your dad?" I ask her.

"He was the director of project freelancer, he killed himself a few years ago."

"Oh..." I did not know what to say.

"Get going, we will meet you back at the station."

"OK, see you there." I got into the pilots seat and Adam gets into the Passenger seat, we launched.

~x~

Halsey was visibly not happy about Carolina being on her station, but she allowed her none the less. It was still busy on the station and Halsey only had Destiny's room available for use. Destiny was back at the apartment helping Cortana pack her stuff for the move from earth. Doug was already there, he had no where else to go. He told me that Alain was was with Destiny for some reason, I did not think much of it. I had other things on my mind.

Everyone had a chair, Carolina was sitting next to Austin, but noticeably a few inches behind him. She had taken her helmet off and let her hair down from the normal ponytail. Doug was snacking on something. Adam was dissembling cleaning and resembling the laser rifle over and over again.

I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees with my fingers intertwined. "Lets talk."

* * *

><p>That's chapter 16. I might use some things from Halo 4 *Cough* Infinity *cough cough* Lasky *cough*<p>

Species Unknown: close... so close.

Please read and review.


	18. Honey? I'm home

The School in the last chapter was a real school in northern Kentucky. There is a myth of a pool on the roof. XD

There is a bit of fluff in this chapter, you have been warned.

Infinity soon!

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><p>"Are you are blaming me for this?" Carolina stood up knocking her chair back. "You and you're friends showing up here?"<p>

"No, you had no idea that using the teleporter would cause this." I tell her.

"Then why are you saying I caused this?" She was pissed

"Hear me out."

"Carole, I think you should hear him out. I have known him a long time, let him explain." Austin said softly. He reached up and gently grabbed her wrist and pulled her down. Not something easy to do when the other person was wearing powered armor, the only way for that to happen was to let it happen. She was listening now... I hope.

"The Teleporter you used is not a regular teleporter. Normally human made teleporters has a radioactive pulse and that's why it was never used for by the UNSC. The forerunners seemed to have the trick down, but it still needed tremendous power, and that's why tucker's armor was covered in black stuff, it was an energy build up." I say in case Church was listening. "From the data I pulled, it seems like your father was experimenting with teleportation units for the free lancers. Low power and non radioactive. But it could not be downsized enough to fit into a person."

"What does Carolina have to do with us?" Doug asked.

"The teleporter when used produces an unknown type of linear free particles. After building up from so many uses it can affect computers. Somehow, instead of sending us to a random place, we got sent to a different time."

"How do you know it's time and not a parallel universe?" Adam had stopped cleaning his rifle and was now paying attention.

"Did you ever have a dream where you were back on earth? During our time? Any of you?" I ask.

"Once... I was at your bachelor party in Vegas. Only for a few minutes though. I got you out of your room, we had drinks and then some escorts showed up."

"Right, I was there as well. You corrected Anthony, he called them strippers." I say. "Before you got me from my room, I set up encrypted emails for Halsey. She got them, and she could not decode them till I got my hands on it. They were the ones I sent."

"Damn..." Austin said. Normally he would not have a filter on his mouth. He was unusually quiet.

"I also had another dream, I was with the librarian."

"Who is that?" Doug asks.

"The forerunner that was in charge of the final plans for the flood."

"What did he say?"

"She said that everything was planed, and that you guys are part of this, and that I would need your help."

"What for?" Carolina asked. She seemed that she had calmed down somewhat.

"She did not say."

There was a few moments of silence. Austin was the first to ask what was on everyone's mind. "So how do we get home? To our time?"

"I don't know... Halsey is running simulations on her bank of super computers, but it does not look good. It pains me to say this because I accepted this a while ago, you guys may have hope. But we may stuck here..." I tell them.

"What can we do?" Doug asked.

"Sit... wait... pray that Halsey finds a way..."

"I don't think I can just stay still..." Doug said.

"I know. I won't be able to as well, but I can't do anything. Fighting the Flood is out of the question, they have earth... again."

"If we can't go to earth, then where do we go?" Austin asked.

"Reach, we planned on leaving the earth before the Flood came back."

"What about jobs? Adam has something, you do as well." Doug pointed out. Doug was 18 at the time I had been zapped."

"Yeah, I am not going to twiddle my fingers for however long it takes to get home." and there's the hope, Austin was older now mind set of a working adult... He was 17 when I left, now I had missed 3 years.

"Doug, you still interested in working on plants?" I asked.

"I was only working plants because I had too, but sure."

"OK, I might have something for you and Austin then."

"Alright" Doug said.

After that we talked about plans and what we could do. After a while we realized it was getting late, Doug would stay on Halsey's station. Adam left for the Cairo, Austin left with Carolina to another station, when asked Carolina just gave me a dirty look, so I just asked how I could contact her if I needed Austin or her. She gave me a encrypted radio channel.

I left for Destiny's and Cortana's apartment, no troubles getting there. Cortana was at John's helping him pack up. There were boxes everywhere, clothes, books, dishes. But no photos, save one, it was of John when he was on Cario station. Just after he gets the mark VI in the beginning of halo 2, it was from one of the floating cameras that were present during the cut scene.

"Max?" Alain was hiding behind a box.

"Huh? What are you doing?"

"Shh!" He raised his finger to his lips telling me to be quite.

I crouch down and get closer. As I do, I hear a voice in the back ground say "Ready or not here I come!" Even if he could not see me, I got a big dopey grin on my face. I activated something that was almost a piece of history, cloaking device. I shimmered out of view. Alain's eyes got big and he started to look for me. I moved over to sit on the end of the couch, I could hear Destiny's feet patter across the kitchen; she passes the end of the couch and looks right past me.

She walked around checking obvious spots, under Cortana's desk, behind the couch. She passed me twice. After a few minutes of looking, she walked over towards the boxes by the door. And then she found Alain.

"Uh ah!" She pulled a small flat device out from her pocket, she pushed a few buttons on it and the device spoke in French for her. -Found you-

"Aw..." Alain crawled out and pouted. "You cheated." he crossed his arms and put on his best unhappy face.

-Maybe next time you will find a better hiding spot.- She smiled. -Let's watch TV-

Alain nodded and walked over to the couch, sat down on the end opposite of me and he gave me a wink. Destiny sat down in the middle and used the remote to turn on the TV. She changed the audio to French and turned on the English subtitles. I see the energy left was getting low with the cloak. Destiny was glued to the TV trying to read the subtitles. I turned the cloaking off and shimmer back into view. Alain looked over to me and smiled.

Destiny did not notice me for five minutes, Alain started to giggle, Destiny looked at him and asked what. "Rien..." she looked at the device and I see the translation already knowing what he said. 'Nothing'

"Something..."

His eyes darted to me and then back to her. Destiny slowly turned around... she screamed, fell down while trying to jump off the couch. Alain was full out, gut busting laughing.

"That's not funny." Destiny said from the floor. "You scared my half to death you dick."

I chuckle, lean forward and offer her my hand. She takes it and I pull her up onto my lap.

"So did I miss anything?" I asked

"Not much, just packing up. I found some type of seeds. And do you remember that guy that wanted to meet us? He was with John, his name was Lasky. He is some sort of captain."

"Never heard of him."

~x~ (Austin's point of view)

"So where are we going?" I ask Carolina. I wanted to know what were her reasons to come back for me, but I have the feeling that I could not just ask her straight up

"To the bio-dome, it's amazing how many people believe that no one will hear them talking about secrets. I have a place hidden near the air system."

"Why would a bio-dome have an air system?"

"Fake wind mostly, and to recycle the CO2 from small air filters." She says as she flips a few switches on an over head panel.

I nodded and sat back in my chair. There was nothing I could do; I did not have the slightest idea on how to fly a shuttle. Carolina flew under the dome and flipped a few more switches, a panel on the bottom slid back and she flew in. There was a docking clamp that reached out and grabbed the top of the shuttle and pulled us in.

After the air lock ran through the cycles, Carolina and I walked through a small maze of hallways that were covered in piping. We got to a door that said: mantanice only

Carolina opened the door very slowly and stopped right after the door got just past the frame. She reached down and around the bottom, yanked and then let the door swing open on its own. She then pulled out her pistol. "Stay here" And walked in without another word.

I poke my head around the corner of the door and look at the floor. There was a grenade with a string leading from a hook on the wall to the pin. It was a trap for anyone who got nosy. I hear shuffling in the background and a small clatter. A moment later I hear her call out. "Come in."

I walk in, being careful not to step on the grenade, her place was small, there was a portable TV on a coffee table in front of the couch, there was a folded blanket, a few storage bins stacked next to the couch and a sink in the back of the room. There was a small pile of various dishes in the sink waiting to be cleaned, a fine layer of dust on everything, I noticed a pile of wrappers overflowing a trash bin.

"Sorry it's not very tidy; I don't come here often..." She said apologetically taking off her helmet.

I laugh a little bit. "Its fine, it looks better then my first apartment."

She smiled at this.

I Shuffle my feet and look down at my clothes, it had been a few weeks since I had gotten them washed, the cell had a shower. I tried washing the clothes in there once and failed. The cell got very hot when I tried to dry them off, I gave up washing them after that.

Carolina sits down on the couch and it groans under the weight of her suit. She placed her helmet on her legs and stared at the back of it, fiddling with a small dent.

"Why did you come back for me?" I asked before I could stop myself. Carolina looked up at me and I could see a hint of fear. Why?

"... I don't know. I have been killing for so long that I think I wanted to save something..." She looked back at her helmet not fiddling with the dent anymore. I don't think that was the whole truth.

"I will give you two some privacy" Church said reminding us that we were not totally alone; his hologram appeared and walked to the wall by the sink and placed a hand on it. A panel slid up reviling a computer, he disappeared and the computer came to life, the panel slid back into place hiding the computer once more.

I sit down on the couch on her right and I reach over to her face and cradle her left cheek with my hand. She turned her head to look at me. I look into her eyes.

"Is that the only reason? I asked.

"When I first found you, I had no idea who you were. So I planned on killing you, but F.I.L.S.S. said that only the director could unlock you're cell. I came back every day, at first I checked to see if you were still there. Then after a while I checked to see if you were still alive, then I started to wonder who you were, where you came from. I was going to talk to you one day, but I walked in when you were... washing your clothes..." She blushed, I was stark naked that day. "I waited for the next day. And then that's when we first spoke to each other, at first I thought you were nuts talking about exploding gaming console, asking where you were, the date and so forth. We talked everyday from then on." She trailed off so I thought I should say something.

"On the day I was trying to wash my clothes, I thought I heard a noise, a quiet squeak or something, I thought I was from a mouse or rat. Was that you?" I ask her.

She nodded and put a little more weight on my hand. "I really like you..." she said half sighing and closing her eyes.

"You don't need physical contact to be able to make relations." She said after a few moments.

"Are you saying that you love me?" I ask her.

She opened her eyes and smiled at me.


	19. Calculations

I don't have the slightest clue on how slip space works other then it can be affected by gravity. I rushed a bit in the end of this chapter, and I might have chapter 19 up today, anyone up for time travel? Enjoy.

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><p>AdamMax's point of view

At the time, we were in a pelican, Adam was in the co-pilots seat, he was interested in learning to fly one. but the pilot was not letting Adam touch the controls, but he left the fly-by-wire connected to the co-pilots seat. so Adam could see the movement of the controls, but not do anything with them.

We were sitting in the loading bay of Halseys station, waiting for the U.S.S. Infinity to make a precision jump. Doug was napping in his seat, Austin was still with Carolina, who was making her way into orbit with her pelican. Cortana was with John sitting across for us. John was in his suit with his helmet in it normal place, on top of his head. We had been waiting for about 30 minutes for the jump to happen. I was sitting next to Destiny. Alain is sleeping on Destiny's lap, Destiny is slowly running a comb through his mangled brownish blond hair. It was long for a boy, he had not really taken care of himself during the time he was underground, Destiny said that she had to wrestle him into the shower last night. I was wearing my armor with my helmet on as The pelican was loaded with cargo, belongings, supplies, etc.

After a few more minutes of twiddling my thumbs the pilot turned on the intercom.

-Infinity incoming momentarily, brace for slipspace jolt.-

"What's that?" Destiny asked me as I got up and moved Alain into his seat and made sure his harness was secure.

"Nothing normally happens to anything around the slipspace hole, but on rare occasions something does happen, it can be like a shock wave." Cortana told her.

I walked over to Doug and shook his shoulder.

"Haa... what?" Doug drifted back into reality.

"We are leaving in a few minutes." I turn and start walking back to my seat. As I squeeze in between some of the belongings, Alains mask falls out of a bag, I pick it up and start stuffing it back into the bag without a second thought.

Something fell from the mask and made a clinking noise. I look at the source of the sound and I see a blue crystal. I pick it up and see that its covered in symbols, Forerunner symbols.

I get to my seat and strap in. I turn the crystal over in my hand a few times to get a better look at it.

"What's that?" Cortana asks.

I toss it to her. "Not a clue, it came from Alains mask. It has forerunner symbols."

"Yeah..." She gets quiet.

"Can you translate them?" Destiny asked her.

"Not without a lab, but I can tell you that they are directions."

"To what?" I ask this time.

"Not what. Through Slipspace"

~x~ (Adam/Max's POV)

After Infinity jumped in, there was the type of swarm that you normally see in a subway station right after the train stopped. Our pelican waited for about 20 minutes before landing in the bay, We were told by the A.I. Roland to wait for a trolley that we could use to move our crates. I rolled the crates into place using the wheels on the floor. After some more waiting, a automated trolley arrived. John and I moved the crates on to it and sent it on its way.

Destiny took Alain to our quarters to get him settled, Adam was pagied by security, and Doug made his way to hydroponics to grab a job before they were all taken. So John and I were the only ones free to help with the crystal, which was fine, but there was really nothing to do besides hand her a tool or two every now and then.

At about noon, Cortana grunted with some sign of triumph, I looked up from my tablet to see what she was doing. She was manipulating a enlarged holographic copy on the crystal on a holo-table. Underneath it was a series of 7 boxes with rapidly changing forerunner symbols, all but the last box was filled. Cortana pulled a symbol from the copy and then placed it into the empty box. After she did, the flashing symbols stopped changing one by one. after all of them had stopped, the crystal copy disappeared and the symbols remained.

"What are those?" John asked

"Those... are directions to something just beyond the rim."

"The rim of what?" I ask as I slid the tablet back into its slot on my back.

"Our galaxy... This first symbol" She points to the one at the right end. "This represents 'candidus centrum', or in other words, white center."

"The milky way's center?" I ask

She nodded. "The others however, are very similar numbers, but just off slightly."

"How slight?" John asked

"Just kilometers, I had to sort it out from some irrelevant numbers that showed up in the calculations."

"So what is out there? Is it the ark?" I ask.

"No, that's on the other side of... well, everything." She pulled up a map of the milky way, at one side was the ark, and on the other was a question mark. The unknown location was closer to earth then the ark.

"Can you pull up our current location and show the relevant data." John asked

"Why? We are still in orbit of ear-"

"Just do it." John said not listening to Cortana.

Cortana pulls up a view of Sol system with highlighted orbits of the planets.

"Now can you show me a fly through of all the charted planets from Sol to the " John seemed to be on to something. The projection changed to show earth flying out of view passing several planets and some hunks of flying rocks.

Then for several moments nothing was projected, then a small cluster of planets zoomed past.

"Stop." John said. The planets were projected and then orbit lines started to form, flying out from the surfaces.

"One L-class, 3 M-class and 3 S-class planets. What is special about these John?" Cortana asked.

"I don't know..." John Rested his head in his hands and sighed.

I took another look, there was nothing that would be of interest. but I got a idea. "Could one of these planets be a shield world?" I ask.

"No, this data came from... Well... Me, the data that Mother pulled out of me when I started to lose my thinking space after we left the first Halo. The planets in view now are not natural formed planets, but are not shields."

"OK, What about their orbits?" John asked.

"The computer is still loading it. And what's with you? You never had input during jump planning."

"This is jump planning?" I ask but am ignored because John spoke up.

"Something's bugging me, it's like something or someone wants to speak from inside me."

"Like what?" Cortana asked.

"I don't know..."

The projected planets orbits loaded and John pressed a button on the table and a bar with a knob in the middle showed up. John dragged the knob to the right and the planets started to fly on their orbits around the L-class which is bigger than Jupiter.

No one said anything for several minutes while John was staring at the projections with a look that would have made a Hunter lose the will to fight. I watched the moons orbit at a very fast pace. After several months time, I noticed that the moons started to... line up on one side... and John stopped right then.

"... That's it..." John says with a sigh.

"I think I know what you found..." Cortana said while she started to type furiously into the computer. Soon after, a wire frame was projected showing the gravitational pull of each planet and the combined shape of the pull.

The shape was a cone, Cortana simulated a slipspace jump while accelerating at the point of the cone. And the results were odd. The simulation showed that the jump would end up at the center of the destination that was on the crystal.

"How often are the planets like this?" I ask.

"Once every earth year. The window for jump is about 30 hours." Cortana said.

"Let's talk to the captain. I might be able the get us a ship." John said.


	20. Frozen

OK, this was all done on my tablet while there was spare time in school, so grammar might not be the best. Spell check worked for the most part.

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><p>I got too the room Destiny and I shared and once there I got out of my suit and into my civies. I was exhausted from planing the trip with Captain Lasky, I could tell he had respect for John on a totally different level, but I knew that asking for a frigate was going to be too much, so I just stayed off the subject until he brought it up. The plan was to send newly researched deep space probes with a new slipstream drive that was made with joint efforts between the Humans and elites. The new probe was made to travel faster than any ship in service(both human and covenant. They were developed for the main propose of finding the rest of the Halo rings and report back with info on the location and to carry a message to the caretakers of the halos saying that the flood is gone and the rings are no longer needed and that we request that the rings be deactivated.<p>

But there was no sign of the rings yet, and it was predicted that none would be found for a long time. Lasky had a few on Infinity and had no use for them. He was willing to send one to the crystals location as long as he was in the loop. The probes would fly out side the place that the jump from the planets. Then if the probes found something that was worth looking into, then he would send a frigate there, or the Infinity her self if it was really something to look at.

Destiny was already sleeping in bed with a few data pads on what looked like the subject of grow lights. I picked them up and placed them onto the night stand, after taking a shower and brushing my teeth, I got into bed as well. Soon after I was asleep, dreaming something that was not really I should have been involved with, I was in a uniform, Human, UNSC with no visible markings to what group it belonged to. I still had my Spartan body so I was a taller than the others around me. There was a few other men in the same UNSC uniforms around me. Everyone was wearing a helmet with the exception of me and a red haired guy who was a little taller then the others, but not by much. At the moment it was night and the group I was with was in a well lit city with lots of foot traffic.

-Daisy has been spotted in grid J3, does any one copy? Over- My earpiece blasts.

"This is S-team 6" The man with red hair responds. "We are west of the area and are inroute. Over and out"

The man without another word raises his right hand and gives the follow signal. I might as well see where this 'dream' leads me.

After walking a few blocks, we were in a suburbs under construction, all but a few houses had walls, the rest were skeletons of wood and metal. I got a closer look at the red haired man and saw a few things, his head was on a swivel constantly, he was incredibly fit and had a amazing poster. And last but not least, he was young, very young. I think this 'man' was John-117 at the age of 13. I got the number 13 because he was taken at the age of six, and if we are looking for Daisy-23, then a few days ago Ralph-303 said it had been 7 years. Simple logic.

John had us sweep multiple houses on various streets, and eventually we got to the last few houses.

"Men, the sat say Daisy is in one of these houses. You three go to that house." He pointed to a house with a few walls that was behind me. I was one of the three so I followed the other two. I could hear John dispatching the rest of the men to the other houses.

"Freak..." One of the men muttered as he pulled out a flashlight, I did the same. After we got inside we started sweeping the house, slowly working our way up. We reached the top floor and found the attic had no ladder leading up to it. So I kneeled down cupping my hands together to toss the others up. After I did one of them reached down and pulled me up.

There are metal posts holding up the roof with plywood boards leaning on them making a few hiding spots. I started my sweep, I got to my end of the attic, I turned around and find that I was alone.

"Hey, guys? Where did you go?" I call out to them. No response.

I turn off my flashlight, switch off the safety of my side arm that was still in its holster and take cover behind two 'walls', one was plywood and the other was a metal sheet that was kinda thick with sharp corners.

The sounds of the city slowly fade away as I try and listen to the sounds of the house, my heart beat seemed to slow down, headlights from the close by free way that sweep across the room slow down to an agonising pace. I think this was what John called spartan time.

I hear soft foot steps and creaking metal, I see the beginning of some sort of black pipe with a small hole at the end move past the edge of the wall to my left, the pipe slowly continues to move past the edge of the wall, I see that it is a supresser on a pistol. As soon as I see the feminist right hand that was around the grip, I shove my right hand through the trigger guard which is more like a entirely different handle on this variant of the M6. Pulling her arm past the wall I see that it is Daisy, red suit and blond hair. Using my left arm, I swing up with my left fist and twist with my right hand. My fist makes contact with its target, her elbow. Her right hand went limp from the shock. I pull the gun from her and swing it into the metal sheet, hard. I then quickly fire the chambered round and drop the gun, I look at her and see that she was moving to a defensive stance, I quickly grab her right wrist and move behind her pulling her arm with me. She had a knife in her left hand, she tried to stab me with it by reaching around the lower half of her head, she scraped my face. Her mistake, I grabbed her other wrist and twist. She dropped the knife and then I pulled her arm back locking her arms.

"Don't fight me, and I won't hurt you." I tell her.

"I am not going back!" She hisses.

She shifts her legs and kicks my shine, I felt the pain but did not loosen my hold on her. I did however use my legs to sweep her legs from under her, I let us fall over onto our sides to make sure that I did not crush her. Then I rolled onto my back and wrapped my legs around hers to lock them.

"I am not here by choice, and I am not going to take you back." I say to her.

She was quiet for a moment. "How can I trust you?"

I whistle the notes of olly olly oxen free, it was the only thing I could think of that would get her on my side... or at least stop her from trying to kill me.

She was silent. I let her go and she scrambles up off of me. I grab her knife by the blade and stand up. I hand her the knife and step back.

"How do you know about that?"

"Long story that you won't be able to hear. I don't know why I am here, and I am not going to stop you from going home."

I pick up her gun and slide out the magazine, it was loaded with a mix of tranquilizers and stun rounds. She must have had to scavenge what she could while on the run. The slid on the gun was dented causing the normal sliding action to be disabled. The gun was good for that one shot, then it was as good as a paper weight. I was thinking that the fight would last longer then the few seconds that it did, so I bought my self some insurance.

"If you are not here to stop me, then why didn't you let your self be knocked out?" She asked.

I looked up from the gun. "How in the world would I know if you were going to knock me out or kill me." She nodded. "Can you do something for me?" I ask her.

"What?"

I hand her my pistol and the spare mags that I had. One was stun, the other two were real bullets. And I took off my pack with the supplies and pulled out the rope and I found a grapple hook, I walk to the roof window tossing the pack away and then I toss the grapple to the free way with the rope being dragged behind it. The hook lands just over the side railing, I pull on the rope and the hook catches onto something. I then tie the end off on on one of the metal posts giving her a way out of the house.

"Knock me out." I tell her.

She momentary looks at the gun and then the rope. "Your not a innie are you?" She asked

"No"

She hugged me which caught me off guard. "Then there is hope. Night." She hit me on my head with the pistol. Things faded and I passed out.

~x~

My vision was blurry, and I could hear voices talking, but I could not make out what was being said. It was like a grenade had gone off close by and my ear drums were still vibrating.

Someone stood over me, I could make out blond hair and for some reason, before I could stop my self, I mumbled something. I don't know what because I passed out again.

~x~

"Wake up son." I hear a rough voice command.

My eyes shot open and I found my self in a hospital room with a man standing at the foot of the bed I was laying on. Sargent from the look of it.

"Ugh... Sir, what happened?" I ask.

"You got knocked the fuck out son." The man said. "Daisy took your equipment and got to the free way. After that, we don't know."

So I was still dreaming... "How long was I out sir?"

"6 hours, give or take a few minutes."

"Damn..." I say.

He nods "Halsey wants to speak to you after you get checked out by the doc."

"Yes Sir."

He leaves.

I sit up and check my self, plain green shirt, pants with to many pockets, wallet, combat boots and dog tags. After a few minutes a nurse carrying a clip board comes in and walked to a man with his hand in a plastic cast that was in the next bed over. He had torn clothes that made him look homeless. The nurse asked him something and he shook his head. Then she walked over to me.

"Would you mind being a test subject to a new portable scanner? It won't take two minutes." She asked me, she was in a good mood, smiling and a slight giggle at the end.

"Sure, why not." I smile back.

"Frank, come on in."

"Alright who is ready for a scan?" A very cheery voice said.

Oh god... not him... please don't let it be him...

Doc walked in right then, he was from the looks of it very young, around my age. He was carrying a rugged silver case with him. He was in a male nurses uniform, his hair was brown, long and slicked back

"So how is our patient today?" He asked

"Fine." I say knowing full well that I could be that patient that Doc shocked during training.

"That's good" He set the case onto a table and popped the locks open. Then he proceeded to push various buttons on a key pad. Something beeped and then he pulled out what looked like a plasma pistol, but it was clunky and from the looks of it heavy. There were data cables running from the pistol to the case.

"Looks like a Taser" I say jokingly

"Don't worry, its perfectly safe" he said as he turned a dial on the side of it. "Just... Don't move."

I held my breath and did not move a muscle. The scanner started humming and I could see it was vibrating in his hands. The nurse started to look back and forth between the silver case and me while taking notes.

Then the green ball of plasma grew at the end of the device I was at. Then the case beeped again.

"All done." Doc smiled and I let my breath go.

I can see the man in the next bed was putting on a jacket and then a pair of glasses.

"Uh..." I hear Doc mutter right before I hear and feel the scanner discharge... onto my chest. The plasma ball bounced off of my dog tags and into the bed railing that the other man was in. I feel a burning sensation from my chest. I rip off the tags, as I did I heard a shout from the man, I see that his hair was on end and smoking. His cast that had been resting on the rail, and now was melted.

"Ow..." The man said.

The nurse had him lay down as Doc went to go get a real doctor.

"Sir, can you tell me your name?" The nurse asked.

"Leanored... Leanored church." The man says, was I here to meet him as well? He seemed groggy, I would be too if that was me.

"Alright sir, can you feel you're hand?"

"Yes, it hurts from the broken bones, but not the... what ever that was." He says.

"Ok, the doctor will be here in a moment to check on you."

I check my chest and find that it is red from the burn, it stings but it was not that bad. A normal plasma shot could have killed me.

A doctor walked in and checked the director out. He was fine, and then he walked over to me and checked my chest.

"technical, its a second degree burn, but I don't think it will blister." He said.

"Thank you" I tell him.

He nods and then walks out. I am about to walk out when another woman in a black civilian outfit and blond hair walks in with a plastic bag with what looked like clothing. Followed by her was another nurse with a clipboard that I had to fill out. The nurse was paged and left me alone to overhear the conversation between Leanored and the woman.

"Church, what happened?" The woman asked.

He smiled. "I'm surprized you remember my name miss..?"

"Thanatos. And why would I want to forget the name of my rescuer? Even if it was unnecessary."

He looked offended at that. "Did you hear a thing that man said about you just because you did not go home with him?"

"That man was not a concern. And besides, I could have taken him."

"I doubt it."

Thanatos puffed out her chest. "Well you seem like you can throw a punch, do you want to spare later?" She asked.

He simply raised his hand with the melted cast.

"Oh... I'm so sorry." She said.

"It's perfectly alright."

"No, you broke it trying to defend me."

"Everyman has the right to defend a woman."

I see Thanatos smile at that "Well thank you for trying."

"No trouble, now if you would excuse me, I need to go buy some new clothes."

She held up the bag "I already got some for you, I hope they will fit you."

Leanored smiled and nodded. "Thank you."

"Um... After you get changed, would you like you join me for coffee, maybe lunch?"

"I would like that very much thank you."

He took the bag and I was done with the papers, Thanatos left so he could change.

I waited outside as well, Checking my wallet I had some credits, but nothing else, no photos and no Id. Church walked out in a tight shirt and loose pants. Thanatos giggled and tried to cover her smile.

I walk back in and collect my stuff. When I walk back out and the pair are gone. I start to wonder if that was Allison.

~x~

I arrive at the ONY building that Halsey would be in, I was taken to a office where two armed men were standing besides the door. I sat down and waited. Not much later Halsey walked in with a cup of coffee and her glasses were softly glowing. She sat down and took of her glasses and gave me a deathly stare.

"Who are you?" She cut right to the chase wasting no time. "No identification, fake tags, no records. Not even the insurrectionists know who you are."

I had to keep in mind the fact that we have not met before, I had to go through all of what happened to convince her yet again.

"I don't want to make demands, but if you want the truth, then we need to speak alone Catherine."

Halsey considered what I said and then she spoke to the guards. "Restrain him and then go get a snack or something."

The men handcuffed me to the chair and then left.

"Start talking."

"My real name is Adam, the tags are real, just not in the system yet. You gave me the name Max."

"I have no recollection of ever meeting you." She rested her elbows on the desk and intertwined her fingers as she leaned forward.

"Tell me, why would I believe you?"

"I can't think of any reason right now. I have a long story, if you beleave me or not is up to you."

"Thats true, but I do love a good story."

So I told her everything. I kept what I knew about what was about to happen minimal. About a hour later we were interrupted when her phone went off informing her that Daisy had been located and that she was almost to her home. Halsey started to get her things together.

"So you are only 16?" She asks. "And you work for me 26 years from now?"

"Yes" I suddenly felt woozy. "And I think my time here is finished."

"finished?"

"I'm waking up on the other-"

~x~

I woke up in another hospital room, I was wearing the same cloths that I had on when I went to sleep with Destiny. I look around and find that Destiny was on a lazy chair in the corner, she was curled up, legs almost to her chin. I can hear a woman talking outside the room to someone. I start to get up and I feel pain on my chest, a burning pain. I check under my shirt and I find the burn mark from the scanner.

Cortana walked in and saw me, she rushed over. "Adam, your alive!"

"Uhh... yeah?" I was dumbfounded, was I dead?

"You were... stopped."

"Stopped?"

"Uh. You know about absolute zero?"

"Yeah, 0 kelvin, so cold even partials... stop..."


	21. Strike! Your out!

A few things that I think you should know about whats going on in the story that is not said.

Infinity has Spartans like in Halo 4, there will be no requiem or new phoenix incident. there are more things, but I can't think of them right now.

Ask anything that comes to mind, I will give an answer, it just may not be the one you want. Please R&R

* * *

><p>I was sitting on the bed holding a mirror examining my face, a gash from Daisys knife was on my right cheek, Cortana said that during the time that I was being moved to the medical deck, the skin and whatever got cut just... Dissolved into dust. The cut started to bleed a few minutes after I woke up. Destiny was still sleeping, Cortana said that she was up for the whole night staying by my side and that she had only gone to sleep about 20 minutes ago. My suit was in the other room being exam for anything that caused the trip, I knew otherwise. Halsey walked in wearing a lab coat and carrying a cup of coffee.<p>

"So now I suppose that you believe me?" I ask her.

"If you mean what happened 26 years ago? Then yes, you disappeared right in front of my eyes, and I had a tough time believing that the kid that showed up in John's apartment was you." She answered.

"Mom, do you know why he was... stopped?" Cortana asked.

Halsey sighed and then said "Physical time travel is impossible, and my best guess is that your body here stopped until you came back. And I have no idea about what happened to your body in the past or how you got one."

I nodded and stood up.

"Whoa there cowboy, we still need to check those wounds out."

"The burn on my chest is from a prototype scanner that bounced off the dog tags I was wearing and the cut here" I point to the cut on my face. "Is from Daisy's knife."

"You don't have tags." Halsey said

"I know, but I had Dog tags with my name... at least till it got charred."

"Charred?" Cortana asked.

"Plasma discharge from a med scanner."

I hear her mutter 'Charred' again and see a slight jerk from her stomach like she would be sick. "Forget it for now; I am getting a headache from just thinking of this time travel." She leaves.

"Adam, take Destiny back to your room and let her rest, we need to free up room for the trainees John might work with." Halsey says.

"Trainees?"

"Infinity has a... interesting training room, join John sometime to see what I am talking about."

"Yeah, guess so."

Halsey leaves and I wake up Destiny and explain what I knew. After I got my armor on, I had to half carry Destiny to the tram station. After we boarded, she fell asleep while leaning on me. After the tram started moving, I noticed a pair of older teens staring at me, the boy had tan skin and his hair was in dreads. The girl had light skin and long dark hair that covered her eyes. I could not tell if they were looking at me or Destiny.

"Is there something you need?" I ask them.

"Umm... Aren't you the junky robot that fell on our planet?" The girl asked, she had a tiny voice that did not really carry.

"No" I tell them. They seemed disappointed by this; they must have been the kids from the Halo legends: Odd One Out I make sure to capture a picture with my visor to show Halsey later.

"How is mother?" I ask them wanting to know.

The boy looked down and bites his lip.

"She uh... she's gone now..." The boy said. The tram stopped and the two got off, I could hear the girl say 'Let's get something to eat...' before the doors closed.

After I got Destiny into the bed, I made my way down to the Spartan training area. I got a few strange looks, but I knew that was because I had older armor that was out of date, at least it was to them. My HUD informed me that I had a message from Lasky. He wanted me to meet a Spartan that would be under my command. The message stated that normally this Spartan would be in a headhunters group, but due to the fact that I flew through the grand canyon with a reentry unit. I might be crazy, smart or just plan lucky. We would meet on the bridge in about 40 minutes.

Just enough time to play a round of CTF. I walked into the armory and found about 12 other Spartans getting ready. I grabbed a Battle rifle, DMR, and 2 M6Hs and two Plasma grenades. Four weapons was odd, but not against the rules. DMR on my back, M6Hs on my thigh magnets, and the Battle rifle in hand. The others Spartans and I stood in the middle of the room that had a moving platform. The platform moved down into a room that was about the size of a school gym, it had blue grid lines running along the floor and the edges of the room on the floor and ceiling had not a corner, but a slant leading from floor to the wall.

The room then seemed to dissolve when the platform reached the bottom; it morphed into what looked like a rock quarry. I noticed that my armor along with the others had changed color, a closer look at my now blue armor reviled that it was a projection over my normal armor. Half the group was red, and the other half was blue.

A recorded voice told the teams to go to the corresponding base and wait for the round to start. I did a light jog to the blue base and made sure the weapons were ready. There was a countdown and the match started with an echoing male voice announcing, "Capture the enemy flag to win!" After the short wait, the round started. The Spartans ran out into the battlefield and began to take strategic positions; I was behind a barrier when a sniper round fired and the voice announced "FIRST STRIKE!"

The Spartan that was taken out raged over the comm that the red team got the sniper. Almost immediately the red team came running over the hill guns blazing, screaming, "GO SHARKS!"

My team started to lay down a suppressive fire to try and hold back the red team; most of the team had some sort of blue deployable shield that was movable. 'That's new...' I thought to myself as I zoomed into one of the reds that were not using a shield and I fired, the red flickered and I realized that it was a hologram. I quickly ducked when I heard the sniper round hit the barrier.

"Geek!" I hear the closest blue call out to me. I look over and he tosses me a grenade with one hand, and holds another in his other hand. He pointed at a rock where a few reds were taking cover. I nod and he started to count down with his fingers. Three. Two. One. We primed and tossed. My grenade landed and hit a reds foot; the red brought his leg back as if he was going to kick it away. Too late, it went off kicking up dirt and dust alike, but also pushing the other blues grenade further than normal. My teammate threw a second after me on propose. I tracked it and it had landed in the reds base. It exploded and a red body went flying out. Some off the reds that were slowly advancing were closer then I would have liked. But I noticed the shields turning a shade of red. I my energy shields were full, so I started to fire at the closest red. His shield failed and I pumped lead into him, I got the kill, but a few blues had bit the dust and I see a female red on top of a rock holding no weapons at all. I pull out my DMR and zoom in.

I see that she was pointing her fingers like a gun and she was aiming at me. She pushes her thumb forward like she was firing the gun.

I had no idea what she was doing, so I fire a round at her head. Her shields shimmered and held, I fired again and she just stood there and pointed up. I glance up and I see... a spot light for the look of it.

Only when it was about 20 meters away did I realize it was ordnance pod... aimed at my head.' Not going to be that easy.' I think as I prime and toss Plasma faster than most people would believe.

'Shit...' Was my last thought before being knocked out by the Infinity training program?

~x~

Post simulation stats had my placement at 5th with 4 kills, one triple kill and one kill from the grave. Some of the Spartans were chatting about the game, and I overheard one the woman that killed me in game bragging about it. "You should have seen it, I'm sure the look on that guys face was priceless."

A man sighed and spoke. "Skarlet, you got one kill and then got killed because you lost focus in the field."

"Shut your trap, what do you know huh?" Skarlet said punching a locker from the sound of it.

The man laughs and then asks "So who is this baseball player?"

"I don't know, ether way I'm needed somewhere else." I hear her walk away.

After I fill out the records for what I used and how, I got onto the tram to the bridge. Skarlet was there. She had her helmet on and was standing at the back looking out the window. I sat down near the front and stayed quiet.

After we arrived at the bridge, Lasky was talking with Roland about Reach and how it needed to be cleared. Before I could ask what was going on, Skarlet walked past me bumping into my shoulder.

"You wanted to see me sir?" She asked.

"Yes, you will be working for Max here." Lasky gestured to me.

She took one look at me. "Sir, you know that I requested to work alone after Sidney."

"I know that, and normally you would be placed as a headhunter. But Max here has proven that he is capable of keeping people alive while pulling off insane stunts. You will train with him during slipstream travel. Learn about each other and become a team. Understood?"

"Maybe he could help me find whoever tossed that plasma at my back." She was really pressing her voice to stay calm. But it was coming out that she was not happy with me, and had yet to find that it was me that got her.

"If you are going to get angry, use that while sparing with me, just watch out for my plasma's." I tell her.

If one could see emotions, I would more than likely see anger coming from Skarlet. She simply nodded and walked off.

Lasky sighed and leaned against the holo table. "You know, it might not be best to piss off your teammate."

"Yes sir, but if I am going to teach her to think quickly, I will teach her the way I learned."

"How is that?"

"My Brother ticked me off and would try and surprise me all the time, eventually I learned to come up with a comeback on the spot." Lasky nodded. "So what was that about Sidney?" I asked

"She was in a squad that enforced Cole protocol; it cost a all of a fire team except her… And I personally think she lost a bit more than a team mate down there. Exams show her to be borderline suicidal, and disregard her personal safety."

"So you chose me to work with her?"

"The computer says that she is your teammate, but off the file you are in charge of her and make sure that she does not end up killing herself. We have lost so many people that we can't really afford to lose any more, UNSC, ONI, insurrectionists and civilian alike."

It made sense, there was only 21 transport ships in this fleet. That was holding all the humans that fled to earth, anyone else was hiding in asteroids and other planets that the covenant did not burn. There was not many humans left.

"Were all human..." I say

Lasky nodded "Your dismissed Spartan, your new armor is ready you can pick it up on the Spartan deck."

"New armor?"

"Yeah, didn't Halsey tell you?"

"No, no she didn't."

"She has a dislike for the GEN2 armor, she lost the rights after the trials."

"I really need to talk to her... What trials?" I ask.

"Human rights,CIDA and ONI .vs Cathren Halsey. It was a long drawn out battle of wits you could say, it was inconclusive, everyone against Halsey Droped the charges and in return, she would give up the rights to work any official Spartan projects for the rest of her life."

"So I'm not a real Spartan then..?"

"Halsey was forgiven when you rescued the people down in the underground complex. And you were inlisted as a official Spartan, Petty officer first class."

"Alright then. If you don't mind sir, I need to go take care of something."

He nodded and then I left. I needed to talk to Halsey...


	22. Sick?

Chapter 21. (16 is not a chapter, don't try and prove me wrong)

Species Unknown: the time travel was in chapter 19 (20 in the chapter list.)

Please R&R

* * *

><p>I'talked' to Halsey, and asked her why she would risk being imprisoned for me... She had no answer for me. She was glad that I made first class though. I asked why I was a Spartan in the Freelancers system, but not the UNSC's until the rescue, still nothing. I was not happy when I left the enigine room.<p>

~x~

For about 5 weeks Skarlet and I trained together, sparring to learn each others movements and tricks the like, tactics classes so we had our plans in certain situations. During that time, while I could use the newer version, I stayed with my Mark-IV, it was a full MJOLNIR suit. The newer was weaker in some aspects and more so in others. One day John asked if he could spar with me for some one on one, I stopped by early one morning so we could go to the training center together. this was the first time in three weeks he was free to go.

When I knocked on the door John opened it. "Could you wait a minute please? Cortana is vomiting again... I'm going to make sure that she is OK."

"Sure."

"Thanks" He closes the door. about a minute later he came back. "She practically pushed me out

the door saying 'Go spend the day with Max, you need it." He sighed.

"How long has she been like this?" I ask.

"A few weeks...

"In the morning?"

"Mostly..." He nodded

"I'll meet you at the tram, I'm going to check on her."

He nodded and walked off, after he rounded the corner I walked in and found her in the bath room yakking into the toilet. I noticed she had a shirt that was not skin-tight against her stomach

but even in the folds of cloth I could see the bump. I leaned against the door frame and crossed my arms.

"So does he know?" I ask.

"Know what?" She asked wiping her mouth.

"About the pregnancy..."

"Is it that obvious?" She asked

"Morning sickness, the stomach... I noticed your stomach twitch when I told you about the charred Dog tags." As soon as I said that she vomited again.

I lean down and held her hair back for her. After she was done I spoke again. "John's knowledge on the human body is on how to kill someone in the most effect way, he more than likely knows nothing about the signs... You need to tell him."

"What if he leaves me..? I don't want to raise a child on my own..." She looked at me and I could

only see worry in her eyes.

"Why in the world are you worried? You know John better then anyone, you know he won't quit

because he gets scared. Just ease him into it... unless you want me to..."

She sat there on the floor thinking it over for a moment... "If you want to... just don't scare him away please."

I nodded and told her that I check on her later. After that I left and found John leaning on the

station wall munching on a nutrition packet.

"Skip breakfast?" I ask

"No, I don't eat normal food anymore. Doesn't taste right. Kinda bad." He tossed the wrapper into

a trash bin and we got onto the tram.

~x~

"Give up yet Max?" Skarlet said jokingly from her seat.

"Nope" I grunted and tried harder. Never thought I would be doing this, not even after being

zapped.

John leaned closer and looked me in the eyes. "Give up son, you have no chance."

"Oh... Eye contact, yaoi." Skarlet said.

"What? I asked. Not realizing I lost focus and my arm hit the table. "Damn"

"Pay up" John said as he leaned back in his chair.

"Yeah..." I pull out my wallet and leave the right amount of money on the table for the cafe.

"Good try, maybe next time I will pick up the check" John said. Skarlet had met us after John and I

left the armor room, it was in the late afternoon and we decided to get something to eat. We had made our way to the recreation deck, it was more like a small city with burger kings and various shops.

It was packed with people from the other ships without a recreation center.

I had to convince John to try something other then a nutrition packet. He said that it tasted odd, but not bad as he had remembered, which I would think is a good thing considering the fact he might have to eat normal food for many years to come. I did not tell him about Cortana yet, and I was not going to unless he mentions Cortana and her 'sickness'.

"So whats... Yaoi?" John asked as we stood up from the table.

"Japanese word for boys' love."

"hurk" I was drinking the last of my water when she said that. "Were cough cough not gay thank

you very cough much."

"Never said you were."

"Not to mention we both have girlfriends." John said backing me up.

"Yep..." I had to stop myself before I said anything else, which would have been reviling Cortana's

pregnancy.

Skarlet nodded. "Well, I'm off. See you boys later."

"Bye." John said.

After she left John and I started walking down the 'street'. There was a few moments of silence between us. Right after we got past the center of the deck John asked me something that I hopped to skip.

"You were going to say something back there, but didn't. Why not? If its something personal, then keep it to yourself."

"It does involve you, and I was not going to say anything unless brought up."

"What is it?"

"Its about Cortana"

"She has been sick recently."

"Well... Yes and no..."

"What does that mean?"

"What do you know about human reproduction?"

He stopped walking as soon as I said that. I turned back to him.

"John?" I asked.

"Cortana's... Pregnant?"

"Yes."

John walked off, I started to chase after him.

"John, where are you going?" He ignored me.

"John" I grabbed his arm.

He turned to face me, and I see that he was smiling.

"Where are you going?" I ask him.

He pointed to a store front, one that was in the direction he was walking in.

"Oh" I let him go, he walks in and I follow.

~X~ (Adam/Max's POV)

A few hours later, after John told me how it went, and asked me to meet him later I got to the apartment with a smile on my face and found Destiny was working on her plants. She had been trying to start a small garden ever since she found the seed during the packing. A small corner of our place was occupied by a table with various plants, Lettuce, carrots and a few other veggies were planted. There was one plant that I did not recognize, and when I asked about it, Destiny just said that I would find out sometime.

Destiny was quietly humming a soft tune, and seemed happy while she carefully watered the

plants with a dropper. I sat down in a chair next to her, I wrap my arms around her and pull her close to me.

"Ah! Be careful Adam!" She tensed up and reaches out and puts the water dropper on the table.

"Why?" I ask. Knowing she was referring to the plants. "There not delicate roses."

"Humph." She responds.

"What are you doing later?" I ask.

"Nothing... why are you in a good mood?" She asks me.

"Could tell you now, but that would ruin a surprise."

"Aw..." She pouted.

I leaned down and kissed her. She seemed to lose the tension, she leaned on me more as we continued to kiss. After a minute I stopped kissing her.

"You should get cleaned up, look nice for dinner."

"I'm going to take a shower, no looking luv."

Of course I wasnt going to look, we were 16, although our files say that we are older, there was no point in doing anything that would be regretted later on. So I simply nodded and sat back in my chair. Before I knew it... I was dreaming again.

~x~

"Sir, I beleave the computer system is ready." A smooth calm voice said.

"Alright. Start it up." The director of project freelancer said.

I was standing with rifle in hand beside a door in a very long hallway. I was in a Mark-V suit that had the freelancer simbol but no name tag.

The freelancer director walked out, followed by a man with dark skin and hair.

"'Agent Kentucky, make sure the A.I. 'F.I.L.S.S.' is not interrupted during its start up. The presence of a person will add the person as another director." The director spoke to me.

"Yes sir" I had no idea why I was here. But I am not about to let myself be known to him. I knew I could get Halsey on my side if needed. But him? not so much.

The sound of someone running reached my ears and the director looked past me and immediately lost the grim complexion that was normally sitting on his face and it was replaced with a softer look. As soon as I turned to see who it was, I knew why he changed. It was a small red head girl that was running for her father. Carole, she lept into her dads arms and he picked her up.

"Daddy! Daddy! Are you coming to my wrestling match today?" She asked with a very hopeful face.

The director got a worried look on his face. "Uh..."

I spoke up "I have things handled here sir."

He looked at me and then back to her. He sighed. "Yes, Daddy can watch today."

"Yay!" She shouted with joy.

Before the two walked off, she looked at me and asked. "Do you work for my daddy?"

"Uh... yeah I do." I knell down to her level. "Do you like your dads work?"

"He doesnt show me everything... but I like you big talking robots." She smiled at me.

I chuckle at that. "Sure, big robots."

"Lets go sweety, the 'robot' has work to do." the Director said as he set her back down and took her hand.

"OK, Bye!" She waved at me as they walked off.

After they left, I realize what the director had said.

'The presence of a person will add the person as another director.' This was my chance, Halsey did not know because I might have been the one to put myself into the system.

I look around and see the other man was gone. there was no cameras watching the hall way, its safe to say now or never. I opened the door and walked in. It was a mess of wires and thick cables.

"Suit configuration loaded. Welcome agent Kentucky."

"Suit? Oh, right."

I take off my helmet and FIL's voice glitches for a minute cutting in and out. then after a minute it cleared up. "DNA and palm print needed. Please place your right hand on the pad next to my display."

I take off my glove and did so. Right after doing so, I woke up.

~x~

"Adam!" Destiny yelled trying to wake me up.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"You stopped again." She hugged me. I was still in the chair. "You scar me when you do that..."

"Sorry... I don't chose when they happen."

"She nodded and placed her head against my shoulder and she sniffled.

Was she crying?

"Destiny..." I push her off of me to get a good look at her. She had red eyes and her cheek was wet with tears. I pull her pack into a hug. "I can't promise that I won't get hurt in the dreams, but I am not going to let myself be killed, I will come back. just wait it out."

She nodded and hugged me tighter.


	23. The Choice

The end is coming, I am working on the longest chapter yet, and that might be it. I have had a fun time with this fiction, and I enjoyed reading all the reviews. one or two more chapters to go. :)

* * *

><p>I was waiting outside the restaurant for Halsey, John and Cortana were inside with Destiny. Adam was working and Doug was as well, Austin was there along with Carolina.<p>

When Halsey did show up, she was still wearing her lab coat, either not having enough time, or just did not care about dressing up.

"Max, is there something you need?" She asked.

"I was the one that put myself into the freelancer system."

"Oh?"

"I 'dreamed' earlier today, I was in the place of an agent that was guarding the A.I. F.I.L.S.S.'s startup. I 'introduced myself, and entered DNA and palm print samples."

"A.I.s can't be interrupted during startup. It's not a matter of choice, the A.I. is too busy processing its data to do anything else."

"Don't forget that this was not a normal A.I." I said. "It was a freelancer A.I."

She nodded. "True... anyway, do you know why I was called down here?"

"Everyone was called down here for dinner, and its a special occasion. not every body could make it though."

"what kind of occasion?" she asked.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out."

"OK then." She walks in and I follow after her.

John was sitting in a long green sleeve shirt and black pants. I was wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Destiny and Cortana had time for shopping while I trained, Cortana was in the nicest outfit she had, and she had to pull Destiny aside before sitting down to get help with makeup. But she kept Destiny in the dark

"Mom" Cortana stood up and gave Halsey a hug being careful to hide her hand. "Thank you for coming."

I took my seat next to Destiny, She was as clueless as Halsey about Cortana and John. The others sat down and after the waiter took everyone's order, after he left, Halsey asked the question on everyone's mind.

"So why are we here?"

Cortana looked at John, almost the same way that she looked at me outside Johns place, asking him to speak first.

"Cortana and I have been together since that day on reach, only apart for a few times, and the longest time was after we were rescued. Its has been nearly ten years that we have known each other, and its time. Everyone, we are getting married." He smiled, a real smile, not the Spartan hand smile. Although I did see his hand twitch.

I'm guessing a few of the tables around us heard John because they started clapping. Destiny was by Cortana's side saying congrats and the other normal things that one would say when hearing a friend getting engaged. Halsey had a soft smile, but looked like she was detached in a way.

Thinking about something...

I would ask later, but for now I just wanted to celebrate with the happy couple.

~x~

John and Cortana were strolling away from the restaurant and Destiny and I were doing the same. The recreation deck was dark with street lamps lit and a sim night sky above us. Somewhere, one of the apartments above the streets was playing music, something slow, full of joy. We had almost reached the end of the deck when something happened. Skarlet ran up to me in full armor and weapons.

"Max, get suited up. Assault Carriers." She tossed me a plastic card about the size of credit card.

"Destiny, get back to the apartment and stay there till the captain gives the all clear." I tell Destiny

She nodded and ran off. Skarlet and I made our way to the armor deck. I had used my new armor a few times and spent a large chunk of my free time upgrading many things about the once I had my armor on, I made sure that the upgrades I made were working correctly. Layered shields powered by two micro plasma reactors, removed user safety for Spartan II class strength, the suit was now at 150% power output at any time with the option to increase or decrease that, a small dumb A.I. by my coding was used in my suit for managing power fluctuations. The A.I. was so small that it could only communicate by text, impersonal and to the point. I also had energy projectors to cast a cover point if needed.

The card was a key to a EVA booster frame, I was going to lead a fireteam strike squad to capture the covenant leader and hold him hostage for the surrender.

"Osprey's! Mount up!" I ordered to the Spartan fireteam.

Everybody did and the techies left the launch bay.

"So whats the plan? I heard the captain ended the slip early because we were traveling faster than normal." One of the squad asked.

"That's true, we were traveling faster for some reason. We will be launched before reaching the

Carriers, Sling shot around a Class-L planet, have the Infinity fire MAC rounds till there shields drop and capture the minor prophet before they fire a single plasma round at Infinity." I tell them.

The bay doors open and the EVA's are lowered to launch position and a count down started.

5 Systems online

4 Engine start

3 Projected path set

2 Weapons armed

1 Launched

The speed we left the Infinity at was silly, if anyone was watching us, they would only see 6 blue blurs moving away from the ship to a planet.

"Everyone stay in formation, Any one of us drifts and there lost till pickup." I say through the comm.

My HUD flashes acknowledge lights and everyone fell into a V-pattern. As we got closer to the planet, the G-force readings started to go up, I felt my stomach tighten up and we started the 'sling' part of this maneuver. Our speed picked up tremendously and at the halfway point I sent the command to have the Gauss cannons start charging. Another acknowledge light from everyone.

We reached the end of the 'Sling' and went into the 'Shot' part. At our speed, we would get to Reach before the fleet would. But between them and us was the Covies.

I don't think they saw us coming, shields were up no less, the MAC rounds hit the center ship of the fleet and we saw the shelds shimmer from the impact, another volley was fired and the shields gave.

The Peregrine Osprey is known as the fastest diving bird on earth, flying into the wing of its prey as to not harm itself. The minor prophet is the wing, and we were the Osprey.

We fired at one of the loading bays' one way shields with the Gauss cannons. The shield failed and the physical barrier started to slide down. Everyone flew in before it closed completely and to stop, we did a about face of sorts. Firing the afterburners to stop. After landing and dismounting, we were surrounded by Grunts and Brutes, a few engineers were floating around as well.

"We're surrounded" One of the men said.

"Thank you Captain O" Skarlet said as she loaded her shotgun.

"That's unfortunate..." I said. Everyone looked at me. "For them..."

The covies open fire and I project an overhead shield, the plasma rounds bouced all over and hit a few grunts in the process. I needed somebody to take care of the upper levels.

"Skarlet, Hift, take the high ground."

"How are we getting up there?" Hift asked, he was talkative.

-Command/:power_output 400% Duration:0.04_minutes- I commanded the A.I.

I felt the power surge through my suit and I also saw that the shield overhead change color from gold to silver.

I picked Skarlet and Hift up by there backs and tossed them up. Skarlet took this in stride because of all the training we did together, Hift... not so much, he landed fine and took care of the surrounding grunts, but cursed the whole way up. The covies were very quickly being taken care of. And once we took care of enough, we moved on working our way to the minor Prophet. Once we reached the doors with honor guard, I knew we reached the right place, then something strange happened... They opened the door for us and then stood aside.

"Be wary... could be a trap..." I tell the others. Lights flashed and we moved in slowly watching every corner of the room for movement. In the center of the room, the prophet stood unassisted by the two honor guard brutes. They looked at us with blood lust, but stayed in the spot that they were standing.

"The Gods were wrong, and I am standing here holding an... olive branch as you humans say." The prophet said with a calm voice in English.

"What do you mean?" I ask him.

"Whats left of our Counsel determined that we would not try to kill of a stubborn flame anymore, and would rather just move aside. The insedent in the bay was caused by that surprise attack you pulled." He said. "Our forces are too weak to fight you anymore. And we wish to just move on and find the true gates to the great journey. You are here to capture me no? I am willing to go peacefully, to negotiate, we wish to live together, along side humanity, to create an allince."

"... One moment..." I tell him. I turn on my radio. -Osprey team to Infinity, come in Infinity over.-

-Laskey here, do you have the minor? Over-

-You are not going to believe this sir, they want to have a treaty between us, to live by humanity's side. Over-

I heard Laskey sigh. -Alright, tell them to keep the radio on and then you guys come home. We will discuss this later. Over and out-

*click*

~x~

The cease fire was called and talks began. I was getting ready for a shower when I was told that Halsey and Laskey wanted to see me about the the probes, they reported back with info on the location the Crystal gave us. And they wanted to talk about something else, something good.

I walked in the lab and Halsey was working at a computer and Laskey was reading a tablet.

"Max, we found something from the crystal." Halsey said.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A video, it was embedded onto the surface like a old compact disk."

"What is the video?"

"We are still decoding it, but we have a few seconds of video, but no sound." Laskey said. "Here."

"He hands me the tablet and on the screen was the pause/play button. I pressed play and it showed a flood infection form sitting in a glass contanner. everything was fuzzy, and some frams flickered. A forerunner placed a large machine ring around the glass and then placed a small animal on the outside of the glass, maybe a mouse? The forerunner stood back and the ring started to glow red. It got brighter and brighter and the video almost washed out. The camera must have adjusted, because I saw the flood form disintegrate, and the mouse was still walking around as if nothing had happened. The video cut out then.

"That was recorded not long before the halo event. If that was a solution, then we need to find it." Laskey said

"But we should decode more of the video before proceeding for all we know, that lab was overrun with flood. And still could be, the halo's only wiped out everything but the flood." Halsey said.

"So what do we do? If the place is overrun, the it might not be worth it to send troops in, armor or no armor."

"While thats true, what about your suit?" Laskey suggested. "You have your own upgrades, I saw the mission recording and I think we could use more of your work."

"I don't think that would work, my suit is configured so that it uses the Spartan II's power to its advantage, it would end much like the early mark-III testing. A twitch and its over."

"Max... Adam, I know what happened to you and your friends." Laskey said. I looked at Halsey and she nodded. "If you were able to survive the augmentations, then maybe your friends should try and go with you to find that weapon."

"You're putting my friends lives into my hands..." I tell him.

"I know its hard, and you can take your time, but we would need to know before the planets aline for the jump."

"If you want a answer now, then no. They have don't really haves lives here, and I don't know if they want to risk there life's for a time they don't belong in." I said. "I will talk with them, but for now. Its a no, Destiny and I have lives here, I started this break out, I will end it. A flake of snow is enough to start an avalanche."

Both of them nodded and looked like they understood. "OK son. Do whats best."

Halsey's computer beeped and she looked at the computer for a moment. "It's done." She said quietly.

"What is?" Laskey asked

"The calculations, to send them home." She told us.

In my mind, something just clicked, and I knew what I had to do. "Send everyone else home, Destiny as well, if something bad goes down, I don't want her here. I will slip out to the planets and wait for the right time if needed."

"It will take some time to build a teleporter that will send them back. If you want to send them back, I think it would be best if you did not tell them about what you are going to do if you don't want anybody to try and convince you otherwise." Laskey said.

I nodded. It was not the best thing to do, hiding things from friends, but it was needed.


	24. Traveling

I AM SOOOOOOOOOOO SORRY! I know its been a very long time since I have posted anything on this story. I broke up with my girlfriend a while back and lost the interest for a while. I had planed in chapter 23 to be 6000+ words but I have not gotten that done, I pulled this out of the chapter and the rest will be chatper 24. BTW, I am in CA till the 10th of july. I am not here for any events, just a graduation present from my grandparents. Please PM me if you live near the bay area, I need to get out of the house and I don't know anyone.

Please read and review.

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><p>"Max!" I heard Destiny call out, trying to find me. I had been training more and more lately, trying to... detach myself.<p>

Cold, I know, but I thought it would be best if I was going on a suicide mission. I had been talking to Halsey, I had about a week before I would leave, and after that, the teleporter would be finished.

At the moment however, I was in the Spartan training room waiting for the post game scores. Somehow, Destiny had gotten in here and was trying to push her way through all the other Spartans.

"Max, there you are."

Crap, she found me. I turn around and she was holding something behind her back.

"Hey." I greet her. My armor was on and my helmet was as well.

She smiled at me and I Spartan smiled back. "It's ready." She said.

"What is?" I asked.

"These" She brought her hands forward and I saw she had black roses, 3 of them tied together with a ribbon near the buds. The stems were cut high so they were short. "These were the seeds that I found on the station, the other plants were bought." She smiled very brightly this time, proud of herself that she grew something. She held them up for me.

I took them from her and my Helmet did an automatic scan, but I ignored that. The flowers were amazing. Black, but reflecting the light in a strange way. The flower was real, the sent wafted through my helmet. It was sweet. I placed them in a hard tactical case on my thigh. That should protect them.

"Let's get lunch together." I suggested.

"Okay" She nodded.

As we walked out, there was a moment like one in the game Half-life, were you hear conversations between other people.

"She looks pretty young to be dating a Spartan..." Person 1

"I heard that he is only 19." Person 2

"No way, he is a Spartan II; anyone from that program has got to be over 40 years old." Person 1 again.

I am going to have to ask her not to come to the Spartan deck again; Rumors are never a good thing.

After I had my suit taken off by the techs, I got normal clothes from my locker and met Destiny at the dinner.

"So did you hear the news?" I ask her as I sit down.

"What news?" She asked as she flipped through the menu

"They might have found a way to stop the flood for good this time." I already knew I would be getting a bacon burger. The meat was simulated because there were just not enough cattle to use right now, in maybe ten years or so there would be.

"Are you sure? They said that the flood was gone from earth during Halo 3, and then during your little adventure, you found more."

"I saw a project that the forerunners had been working on before the Halo event. It was going to be put into the Halo rings before the event, but the place was overrun before it could. The Halo's were put into place long before being fired."

The waitress came by and took our order, gave us are drinks and left us to go wait another table.

Destiny took a sip of her water and cleared her throat.

"So what is the plan? Is the UNSC going to try and use the thing you saw?" She asked.

"Yeah, but that will be after we leave." I said without thinking.

"Leave..?"

"Uh… Yeah, the calculations are done, and we are just waiting on the construction of the machine."

"So we can go home?" She smiled.

"Yeah, I think so."

She almost jumped out of her seat with joy. A chance to go home, see her parents and friends. I don't think I would have that chance. I want to, but there was too much I was involved with here.

A single snowflake has the potential to start and avalanche. I started so many things here, and I am going to finish them.

"Calm down Rachael, we still have to wait a week or two before Halsey can put the thing together." I smiled.

"Awe."

"Just stay calm, not everything on the computer works in real life."

"I know, but there is hope."

She started to hum a happy tune quietly. Our food arrived and we started to eat.

~x~ (2 weeks later)

The peace treaty was signed and the war was truly over, no need to worry about the covenant fighting us. They even asked if Humanity wanted to join them, but we declined and counter offered with the option that if anyone wanted to sign up with them, then they would be free to join. This was accepted if the humans coming over would take a test to check the reason for joining up. Very few people like the covenant for obvious reasons, and then there were some people who like only the elites. So sign ups were going to be very rare at first.

Reach had recovered slightly from the glassing, and there were a few grass lands, when we arrived, the Covenant was in the process of melting down ice found in space to help the planet recover the oceans.

Things were looking up, but the planet would never be the same, and it would take decades before the planet could support life without outside help. Doug was down on the surface helping with the planting of fast growing trees that would reach the normal age of 20 in about 5 years. Manly for photosynthesis, but also so the trees could start bearing fruits faster.

Adam was on the night watch for the trees, some of the large animals of reach went wild looking for food on a dead planet, and the helpless trees at first were trampled. So an electric fence was set up with 4 shifts of guards. Everyone on duty had to wear a face mask even if the O2 levels were breathable.

Austin was helping Carolina with intelligence for finding any past Freelancer projects, I had not heard from him for a day or two, but he should pop back up tomorrow.

My armor upgrades were being prepped for more Spartans to join me in the retrieval of the device that would end the flood for good. And I was getting a letter prepped when Halsey walked into my apartment.

"Adam, the teleporter is ready, and the time for your slip jump is coming up. I want you to do something for me." She said as she sat down at the table.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Well, what I want you to do, is not going to happen, I know that. But could you be by Destiny when she is getting prepped for teleport? Just to ease her mind, let her think that you will be with her." She looked down.

"Yeah… What is going to happen to get her prepped?"

"A few injections, and so that she won't question why she is alone on the pad, I plan in using an IV and giving her a sedative."

"She hates needles…"

"I know that, and that has a little to do with psychology, hold her hand, and let her be at ease, the sedatives work best when the subject is not trying to fight it."

That made sense. I nodded and offered her coffee, she declined and left. I finished the letter and printed it. Destiny would be getting back from the weekly shopping trip to the recreation deck with Cortana so I put the letter away.

~x~ (The day of the teleport home.)

Destiny lay down on the bed as Halsey and Cortana started to prep the others. Destiny already had the IV in, and she was not happy about that. I had to practically hold her down.

"So this is it." She sighed with a smile on her face.

"Yep, I will be right behind you, the pad is not big enough for everyone at once." I lied, it was big enough, but she did not know that.

"So when will the machine send us?"

"Should be moments after my computer blew up."

"Ok." Halsey walked over with a tray of syringes. "Ready for your shots?"

Destiny winched and looked at me. I nodded.

"OK, first one, chemo shot."

"CHEMO?!" Destiny almost jumped off the bed and ran out.

"It's just to stop the absorption of certain particles from the teleporter, Adam already had them absorbed, Adam had a unique case. He took the blast directly, you and the others did not and I believe that is what is causing his 'dreams'. So to prevent that from happening to you and the others, I manufactured this serum to stop that, it's like chemo, but you won't lose hair or anything like that."

Destiny looked uneasy, but did not stop Halsey from doing her work. As Halsey injected the fluid into the IV stream and then the next few, then she reached the last syringe, the sedative. Halsey looked at me and I nodded.

Destiny as soon asleep. I pulled out a small bundle wrapped by a shirt from my bag and handed it to Cortana.

"Make sure this goes with her, please." I ask

Cortana looked on the bundle and then nodded at me. "I'll do that… Are you leaving now?"

"Yeah, Skarlet and I have a broadsword modified for slip space ready."

Cortana hugged me and whispered in my ear. "Good luck."

"Thank you."

"Bye." She left the room, everyone else had left for the pad, and I was alone with Destiny.

She looked so peaceful, I leaned down and kissed her forehead and whispered a few words to her knowing that they would not reach her mind.

~x~

"Hey Max, why are you here early?" Skarlet asked.

"I'm ready when you are, how is the new suit?"

"Good, getting used to the more than normal Spartan strength."

I nodded, and the lights in the hanger bay flickered, and a few of the computer consoles lost power.

"What's going on?" Skarlet looked around.

"Nothing of concern, you ready?" I sighed.

"Was two hours ago." She hopped into the gunner seat of the cockpit.

I climbed into the pilot's seat, the canopy closed and after we launched, we opened the slip space portal and disappeared into nothing.


	25. Dealings with a false god

OK, I am still working on finishing this story for reasons that are too long to list right now, one or two more chapters and then it will be over, I am have started working so I can't work on this as much. Please R&R. (^-^)

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><p>~x~ (Halsey's POV, several hours after Max left)<p>

"You sure you want to do this? Once you do, there is no going back, and with the amount of data and training in such a little time can be a danger to your mental and physical body."

"Yeah, we know what we are getting into, and we accept." He told me. "Once I saw what Destiny was holding, I knew what was going on. Why do you think we jumped off?"

I nodded.

"Get us ready doc, we are not leaving a friend behind just because we wants to show some macho." He said.

I nodded again and then injected the sedative into the IV stream. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. I walked out of the room and placed a hand on the door frame while I spoke to Cortana.

"Add Austin and his friends to the Spartan roster."

~x~ (Adam/Max's POV, Somewhere in space, in the future)

The jump went smoothly, and we only had to wait about a day for the right alignment of the moons. During that time, Skarlet and I talked, mostly about random stuff that came up. Home, earth, various planets. I had to lie about a few things when personal life came up of course. Her parents were from one of the first planets burned, and was born shipside so she did not really have a planet to avenge, just her surname. When stuff about the flood came up, I corrected her on most everything; most of what she knew was exaggerated tales from people that witnessed the flood on earth. But she defended it like it was the truth. Once we got onto relationships, she just got quiet and stared off into space, not wanting to push I just changed the subject.

The next day (If it can be called that in space), my alarm went off and I woke Skarlet up. The planets were in place for a jump, so we got ready for anything. We got weapons and ammo, a few translating programs if needed, and a program for hacking into forerunner computer for any data on the device. Manuals, blueprints, anything.

We also had a few ways of communicating with forerunners if there were any, unlikely, but you never knew, I mean, if the librarian can talk to someone who lives in the distant future through dreams, then anything can happen.

"You ready?" I asked.

"Born ready." She replied.

"Once we go, we will only have about 3 hours if we want to have a short trip home, otherwise it's a several week trip through Slip." Once through the slip, we would have another window to slip out back to the ring of moons

"Ok."

I broke orbit of one of the moons and got into position. We were facing the large planet with the center ring of moons in between us and the planet. Ran last second calculations and then opened the throttle to full and started our death wish of a journey. We reached the right speed and angle. With the gravity being overlaid in a wire grid, I open a slip space portal right before the tip of the cone and go through. Right before we did and lost scanner capability's, I thought I saw a slip energy signature other than our own.

I quickly forgot about it because I felt something you never should, acceleration.

Heavy acceleration, moving beyond normal speed. I could feel the broadsword shaking, vibrating and jerking.

"What's going on? At this rate, we will shake apart!" Skarlet had to scream over all the vibration.

"I don't know! We should not even feel the ship moving!" I yelled back.

At that moment, without my or Skarlet's input, the slip drive activated and we slipped out of S-Space. Backwards, I could see that because the wall in front of us going away at a very fast pace. In the rearview cam, I saw a wall getting closer and closer, I fired the afterburners, but that was not going to stop us. "Brace!" I screamed at Skarlet.

We hit the wall, not enough force to crush us, but enough to cause some sort of stalactite to break off and fall down on us, pushing us down into a seeming endless pit.

The stalactite tilted and fell off us as we fell. I only had some control over the swords surfaces, but no engine; the back half might as well be gone. I was able to keep us from spinning, but could not get a good angle to glide, so we kept falling. Soon the walls of the pit started to get closer. Eventually it pushed into the sides enough to stop us.

After a moment of relief, I heard Skarlet sigh and say "Night will fall, and the sun will drown when a good man goes to war." I look back and see that she was looking up. "We are inside a planet. I don't think we are where we are supposed to be."

"Knowing my luck, we are. Let's get going. How far down do you think we went?"

"It happened so fast... Two Kilos?"

"Sounds right, popping canopy." I pressed the emergency release on the canopy and it flew off and glided down the pit.

"How are we going to get back up there?" Skarlet asked.

I opened a small compartment next to my seat and pulled out two small pistol looking device with a few spikes on the business end. "These"

"Are those Grapple guns?"

I nodded. "I will carry us up the first time and when we reach the end of my line, you fire yours and carry us up another length, and repeat."

"Sounds good, but can one of those carry two Spartans fully loaded?"

"This was made for the Mark-III, those were a lot heavier. Grab your stuff and let's go." Skarlet gathered her gear, A Saw with four extra drums of bullets, a modified 10 gauge shot gun that was missing the butt, two SMGs and four plasma grenades. I carried the same, but no Saw; I had the assault riffle, the older type that held 60 rounds instead of 32. I aimed high and fired the grapple gun, it hooked onto something sturdy and so Skarlet and I put each other's back together and I switched the polarity on my weapons magnets. We were stuck together. I pulled us up and then Skarlet did the same after I unhooked the grapple, we did this process for about an hour when we heard a loud crash from above. Looking up we saw nothing, so we assumed that it was another stalactite falling.

After we reached the top we found we were inside a sphere of some kind, with a smaller one inside, it was off center causing the walls to close in for the broadsword, and once we found a foot path, we started scanning for any wireless networks left running by the Forerunners. Found one that was only for an A.I. system to travel through, useless to us, so we started to look for any sign of where we were on the planet, and if there was a lab containing that device we came here for. After an hour, I spotted a Forerunner worker ship docked, that would be our way out, I marked it and we continued on.

At one point I swore I heard Voices, But Skarlet did not, we found a bridge to leading to the inside sphere. We started to cross it when the flood started to show their face. Only infection forms, so Skarlet and I held our ground and also our fire, there was no need to announce to the whole planet that there was fresh meat here. We just let the shields take care of them, and then more dangerous forms showed up, combat forms and some brute looking flood started to show up.

We opened fire and managed to hold them back, they kept piling up against the shields and we kept layering them.

Then something I only read about in the forums for Halo 2, an unfinished flood form showed up. The one that would take rockets and grenades to take care of it. The Juggernaut, I was really hoping that I would never see one. Its tentacles could more then likely go right through the energy shields. "We need to get out of here!" I yell at Skarlet.

"How!?"

Then, as if descending from the heavens, a Spartan used a jet pack and softened his landing.

"You two are in deep doo doo here." Doug said.

"Doug!?" I almost stopped firing just to take a look at him, I didn't though. Then From the inside of the inner sphere, a weapon of some kind was fired repeatedly at some of the surrounding flood.

"Who's that?" Doug asked as he shot gunned a few flood forms.

"You don't know?"

"NO" He pulls off the jetpack and slaps it onto my back. "Go see who that is! I got this."

I jumped up and launched. Looking back I see that Doug grabbed Skarlet and jumped over the side of the bridge. They did not have far to fall because below them was a pelican. They landed and then climbed inside. I flew to the sniper to see someone I had not for a long time. Stephen, He was in my Boy Scout troop and then switched troops. We hung out, but not often. He had no suit of armor or anything. How he got the weapon was unclear. I landed on the ledge and pulled him inside the room behind him.

"How did you get here?" I ask him.

He looked shocked. "Uh."

"Speak!"

I just woke up here about four days ago."

"Great." I look around and see a Forerunner suit locked in a glass case. I go break the glass and hand it to him telling him to put it on. As he did at an agonizingly slow pace, I when to the ledge and buy us some time. After a minute the pelican hovered over in front of the ledge, I look back and see that he had it most of the way on, that would have to do. I grab another riffle that was sitting on a rack for him and I toss Stephen into the back of it. I hop on and told the pilot to get away from the area, I knew once Stephens's suit was online, its A.I. might have the location of the device.

I look around and see that Doug, Austin, Carolina and John were suited up and ready for action. Skarlet was reloading her guns and ammo

"How... Why are you guys here?" I asked.

"Well I can't speak for myself, but I think there here to rescue you." Stephen said while putting on his new helmet.

Everyone nodded, including John.

"Andddd speaking of which, who are you guys?" Stephen asked.

"Well you should Know John, A.K.A Master Chief." I told him

"Chief... Halo?"

I nodded.

"And you?" He pointed at me.

"Here, my name is Max, but you know me as Adam."

Skarlet tilted her head.

"Adam... Adam from Troop 8?!"

"Yep."

"Which Adam?" The other Adam was also in the same troop, but slowly faded out for martial arts. And he lost a foot of intestine from his first cancer, so Adam was never really more than a twig.

"The one with body fat."

He nodded. "So how did you get here?"

"Long story" I looked at Skarlet. "Tell you later."

"So where is the other Adam?" Stephen asked.

"Up here!" The pilot yelled.

"He's flying?!" Stephen jumped into a seat and immediately pulled the safety bar down.

"Johns to scared he would mess something up, and Adam is the only one that has seen a pelican flown besides me." Carolina said.

"So where to?" Adam asked from up front.

"Hold on, Stephen might have the answer."

"Me?"

"Yeah, your new suit has an A.I. in it; I might know where we need to go. Just waiting on you to boot it up."

"How?" He asked looking himself over.

"Here, this might help." Austin joking reached over and hit the back of Stephens's helmet. As soon as he did, Stephen went stiff and then relaxed.

"That actually worked." Stephens's eyes were darting behind the visor, looking at all the data that passed as the suit and A.I. started up.

After a few moments of mumbling to himself, Stephen spoke up. "The computer- Easserin, sorry, said that the thing you seek is in a research station above the planet."

"Go up!" Austin shouted to Adam.

"How far?"

"All the way."

"Alright, strap in!"

We did in the nick of time, because Adam pulled up at a steep angle and we passed through the layers of the flood infected planet. The g-forces were getting stronger as Adam flew us faster. After we broke through the top layer, I got out of my seat and because of the zero gravity; I floated my way up to the pilot's area.

"So where to?" he asked.

"Stephen said there is a station in orbit. Do a scan."

"Right, hold on." Adam set a course so that we would orbit around the top and then the bottom of the world.

The world was forerunner that much was clear. But it was old. The metal colors were stained, many holes covered the surface. There were a few lights on, but I think that was all automated systems, keeping the world turning. I don't think it would last another 200 years.

"Bingo got something. Something big with heat coming off of it. Detecting RADs, Nothing harmful, just low levels of gamma."

"Life forms?"

"Doubtful, I will check again as we get closer."

"OK, I will get the others ready."

I floated back to see Stephen walking on the ceiling. Magnetic boots I think. The others were prepping there weapons.

"Alright, be ready, no idea what's on the station. Could be flood, or it could be unicorns. Either way, be ready." I said.

Everyone nodded, including Stephen.

"Stephen, you need to stay here. You have no training, no suit other than that one, and I doubt that its combat rating is above 2."

"Easserin says that this is not just a normal EP suit. He said that this thing is made to fight the flood. He can take care of the weapons." He said.

"Do you know how to use them?" I asked. John got up then and pulled up a collapsible table.

"Beat me and you can come with us." John said while he put his arm on the table. "Lose and you stay."

Stephen pulled his helmet over his head, and placed his arm next to Johns. John sent me a message with the neural link.

-I'm going to overpower my suit and make this kid stay.-

I responded with -just don't kill him.-

John and Stephen gripped each other's hands and started to wrestle. John was grunting, Stephen was whistling, Stephen's arm had not moved. After a minute, Stephen just calmly moved Johns arm down with as much effort as moving his own arm.

"Damn…" John sighed.

I was thinking of clapping. Stephen stood up and smiled, "So how we getting over there?"

"The power in the station is off, so we will have to space walk over there and turn it on ourselves."

Stephen and the others nodded.

Adam made his way to the bay of the pelican, got loaded up and ready.

The door closed and I held onto a handle on the ceiling. The air was leaked out and the pressure was equalized. John hit the door release and it opened. Stephen was not carrying any weapons with him. I grabbed a shotgun and handed it to him.

"No thanks, I got this." He got a running start and jumped off the ramp. He floated out to the station. I could see his suit firing micro thrusters to correct his course. I activated my jet-pack and followed him, the others did as well, Adam included.

-We need to activate the power core- Stephen started to go around the outside of the station. He started to move levers and use computers, Every now and then, he would point to something and I or Austin would move something into place.

Half an hour later, lights started to turn on, some hardlight bays activated, the superstructure was minimal with only a few compartments built in. But to access any of them, Stephen said that we needed most of the systems online. Easserin was telling him what to do, we just followed.

Once we did all that we could outside, the cargo door was ready and waiting, but it was only opened by three key looking devices that were as large as a man. but there were none just floating nearby. Adam said that the scans picked up a forerunner ship in orbit, but it was on the other side of the planet. Its orbit was stable, and was not geostationary, so it would pass us in a hour or so. The cargo door was only needed to get the device out. There were airlocks all over, and all of them worked.

-John, Carolina, Skarlet get the JATO's from the pelican, set them up to stop the forerunner ship by the station. Stephen will talk you through powering it up with the help of Easserin. We might have to use it to transport the device, I don't know how big it is. So it might be able to be transported by the pelican, or not.-

I got three confirmations and they flew off back to the pelican. Adam, Austin, Doug, Stephen and I made our way inside an airlock. We turned on our magnetic boots and cycled the airlock, as the environment pressurized, our suits hissed as it pushed the CO2 from the filters and refilled the micro tanks that held oxygen.

"Stephen, where is the device?" I asked as I moved to the inside airlock, I saw nothing but a hallway on the other side, there could be flood hiding in the superstructure, the rest of the station was hardlight, so if there was flood, it would mean it was only a matter of time before they showed up.

"Center lab, the one that is part of the superstructure."

"Alright, stay quiet, move quickly, and don't die." I said.

Everyone nodded. I opened the door and we moved in.

"Check your corners." I said, Stephen was holding his arm up, I saw part of the armor slid back and a barrel emerged. I had no time to ask what it was.

We had gotten about halfway there when we heard the flood. I looked around for the nearest exposed superstructure, on the ceiling was a vent of some kind.

"Stephen, can you seal that?" I asked.

He pointed his arm at the vent and a red line followed by a blue one was fired at each corner. Very advanced lasers, if they were even lasers. with the vent welded shut, we picked up the pace.

At the lab door, we found a encrypted lock, and no one knew how to get it open.

"I could get through it... If I had three days." Stephen said as he scanned the door.

The flood showed up right then, I lay down cover fire as Stephen kept looking for a way in. Adam and Austin projected shields and also covered Stephen. Doug was helping Stephen with his scans by manipulating the hard light control panel. Fire, reload, repeat. This continued for several minutes, the flood kept coming, combat forms, infection, carriers. All types.

"The lock needs 5 DNA patterns, but I think that the owners of said patterns are long dead." Stephen said after what seemed an eternity.

"Why 5?" Austin asked.

"Who cares?" Doug said.

I remembered something that I heard on top of a mountain. "Guys, its us! We are the five!" I shouted over the gun fire.

"How do you know?" Doug asked.

"Trust me, I know. Everyone, get to the door, Adam, keep projecting the shield. I will do the same."

We shuffled our way to the door, while keeping the flood back at the same time. One by one, we all removed a glove, placed it on the hard light panel, put our glove back on, and continued to fight the flood. After everyone had done that, the door opened and we moved inside, Stephen closed the door and locked it so that it could only open from the inside. There was gravity in that room, and Stephen said something about getting the rest of the station online to turn on some defenses.

"Alright, look for anything related to the device, we need to know how to get it to work." I said.

The device I had seen was in the middle of the room, and it was only hooked up to a few wires. The others started to search, Adam found tablet like devices full of schematics, statistics, and it had a few diagrams that explained what to do. but there was a problem. "Uh... Max? the schematics show that the device on the table... is only a a plug in. The real device is the halo ring, plug this in, and the ring will do what it was made to do. But only the flood will be affected." Adam said while looking through the tablets.

"how can you read that?" Stephen asked him from the computer console he was at.

"It was in an alien language, but when I picked it up, it changed." He handed one to me. "See that? That explains how to build more for the other rings."

I was glad that Adam spotted that. but it was odd that all that was needed and more was on the tablets. The librarian really thought things out when she was planing this. Doug brought over a few small round cylinders with a button on the end of each of them. "The shelf said that these were some sort of movement devices." Doug said.

"How does it work?" I asked him

"I think it works something like this." Adam took two from Doug and placed it on my back piece. I heard a beep and then the next thing I know, I was being lifted off the floor as if I was a paper weight.

"I think that will do to carry out the device." I said after Adam put me down. "Just how heavy is that thing anyway?" I asked.

Stephen walked over to it, disconnected the wires and then placed his arms under it. He tried to lift it, but failed. I guess even a advanced suit like his has its limits.

I tossed Stephen the cylinder from my back , grabbed another from Doug, and the three of us got a corner of the device. We lifted it with ease, and one by one, we let go, the thing floated by its self. I grabbed a few more of the cylinders from the shelf and placed them in my soft case.

"Lets get ready to get out of here, the Flood always finds a way in." I said as I readied my assault riffle.

"Ready as we will ever be Max." Adam said.

"If we make it back to our time, remember to not call me that." I said.

Everyone nodded and got ready. I moved by the door and project my shield over it, I used the control panel and opened it. Only to find that we were alone. No flood or anything.

"I have a bad feeling about this..." Doug said.

"Silent, double time it to the cargo door" I told them. We started to jog to the bay, it would take some time. Stephen said that some systems were off line, that included some of the hard light generators. We floated through some halls, others we ran. We got half way again when we heard the voice, and when we did, we stopped running.

The same voice from the dreams, the old voice that gave me chills. "_I am thankful... without you and your... companions, I never would have had the chance to live forever without the great rings ever firing_"

I looked at the others, they heard it as well. This was not in my mind, this was real.

"Who are you!?" I shouted.

"_I am an object of revenge, a being of time and thought. I was there when the rings fired, and I will be there when they are destroyed._"

"Gravemind..." I said.

"Gravemind?" Austin asked, but no one answered him.

"And what in the universe, makes you believe that you will survive the second great wave?" I shouted, knowing that even though we could not see the gravemind, it could hear us.

"_Only you would be able to unlock the vault, I have had a thousand life times to wait, and now that the time approaches, what makes you think that you will leave here with your hearts pounding?_"

Adam spoke up. "Unlike you, we have not had life times to plan, but we have others."

Others? What was he talking about? I readied my suit, changing the way the shields sit, the power to them, and I sent settings to the others so that they would be ready for a massive fight against the flood if needed.

"_Others won't help where the deed is already done, beware your step._"

"Everyone! Get off the ground, don't touch the walls." Stephen said.

We all floated off the floor, I did not know what to expect, Stephen could see more than I could. I started my Jetpack on the lowest power, then I pushing the device down the hall, the others followed closely behind. Every hall way showed flood retreating, not coming at us, almost like they were scared. What did the gravemind have in store for us?


	26. Old friends

I am really behind on my writing, and I am trying very hard to get this story done, to the point of writing when I am on break at work. Please R&R, it helps me along.

Species unknown: The gravemind is the... center of the hive mind. The flood is a lot harder to kill with a Gravemind.

* * *

><p>~x~ (back on board the UNSC Infinity, Halseys lab)<p>

I was writing reports on engine flux feedback when mothers Glasses beeped from her pocket. She put them on and started muttering to her self. After a moment she spoke.

"Cortana... Check the data logs from the transport earlier... I am getting strange readings from the analysis."

I pushed my chair over to the computer and access the sensor logs. Most was standard readings, some slight changes from the guys jumping off right before the zap, but other than... Bio readings. Strange readings, DNA from a known source, but it was classified. I did not have the clearance. I sent it to Lasky so he could have a look at it.

After a few minutes, I got a reply. 'File unlocked'

I opened it and started reading the complicated mathematical equations. data made sence, some other... not so much. I pulled up the recording of the teleport on the holotable. It showed the guys on the platform waiting for the zap. Destiny was carried in by Halsey and she gave her to Doug. Destiny was asleep curled up, her arms were wrapped around the shirt that Adam gave her.

After a minute, the platform started charging, and Destiny shifted in Dougs arms. The shirt fell loose and three things came out from it. Black roses, Doug say them and yelled at the others to get off, he put Destiny down and then got off himself. Right as he did, the platform activated and Destiny fadded out as a bolt of electricity jumped from the celine to the floor. I used my tablet and put the data from the logs in, the table projected some boxes showing what I had input to the table.

Tiny particles were magnified and the info boxes displayed what they were composed of. All organic matter, half alien tissue, half plant life. The alien tissue was unknown and very old, the plant half however was decade to almost dust. I ran a analysis and waited.

(Adam/Max's POV aboard a unknown forruner ship.)

"Stephen, whats the plan? How's Essern going to do once we get back?" I asked him.

"He will leave a ghost A.I. to fly this into the closest star, Radar blackout and scan nullifiers to keep any info from getting into the wrong hands."

Doug spoke up from the chair he was in. "I thought the UNSC were the good guys."

"Normally yes, but this technology is light years ahead of humans. If ONY knew this ship was coming, then they would do everything they could to get even a picture of it." Adam spoke up.

I nodded and started writing a message for Essern. 'How is he doing? This sudden change of things must be putting a strain on him.' I sent it and quickly got one back, but before I could read it, Skarlet pulled me off the bridge and into the hallway leading to the rest of the ship.

"You lied to me!" She hissed as she pushed me into a wall.

"I never told you the whole truth no, but I told you what I could." I said.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"My real name is Adam, I am from Northern Kentucky, I am only a senior in high school."

"Earth is gone, besides, the USA was dissolved years ago, the states mean nothing now. Stop lying"

"They mean nothing unless I come from the year 2012."

She paused.

"They all come from different times, but I was the first to come through, and there is something else, all this, the halos, forerunners, the whole universe is a video game from my time." I said to her.

Stephen shouted from the bridge. "If you two are done making out, you guys should see this."

I gently push Skarlet away from me and walk up to the bridge. Through the view screen I could see a halo ring.

"05?" I asked.

"01" Stephen corrected me.

"So the first ring built?" Doug asked.

"Last really." Stephen said.

"I thought we were going back to Infinity." I said checking what I could with the instruments.

"We sliped in and then without warning, we sliped out, the device we got from the station was producing its own slipspace field." Carolina said.

"Aliens 100,000 years ago built weapons, and then a upgrade for that weapon. You would think they would leave some sort of manual." Skarlet said.

"Well lets check it out, there may have been writing somewhere on it." I suggested.

"I'm game." Adam said as he got out of his chair awkwardly, he must have been still getting used to his suit and Spartan body.

We walked down to a cargo area about the size of a soccer field with the device sitting in the center. I started inspecting the sides and found symbols running along the sides, I did a quick scan and sent a copy to Stephen.

"Can you translate those?" I asked him.

"Essern is not translating it, what about you?"

"I got nothing, the translation software I brought is still experimental without Cortanas help." I said.

"Any way of getting a copy of the scan to her?" Doug took off his helmet and scratched his head.

"No-" I was cut off by Stephen.

"I think there is a way. Hold on..." Stephen moved a small plate on his arm, and brought out a small cylinder. "This is a bio-bomb meant for the flood, its meant for use in space... slipspace."

"A bomb is not useful to us right now." I said.

"We could rewire it to detonate a data pulse that the Infinity could pick up."

"Would that work?" I asked Adam, who had stayed quiet for the entire conversation.

"From my short time working internal security onboard. Yes, but I am not sure if anyone will catch it."

"Worth a shot..." I said. "What could the data pulse transmit?"

"An image. And thats it." Stephen said and he twisted and pulled the bomb apart slowly.

"OK, get working on that, we have been near the Halo too long for nothing to happen." I left for the bridge.

I passed Skarlet on my way and found her sifting through some data files she was projecting from her suit.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Family history, Great great great grandfather originally from earth was living in northern Kentucky during that time." She said as she set a projection of a file infront of me. "His online name was zeze and he was marred to this girl named japanny1. He mentions a friend that had moved to Japan with zeze and japanny1 and two others that have been not been named."

"And whats his friends name?" I asked.

"I never found the real name of his friend, but he had many online names... hold on."

I waited, only because zeze was my friend I knew from school. We meet freshman year, but never really got to know each other till the next year.

"Ah, his name was Geekycord."

"Never heard of that name. I got work to do. How much history do you have on that thing?" I ask.

"Back till the early days of the 19th century. Why?"

"Could be useful. bring it with you too the bridge." I walked off and a moment later she followed me to the bridge.

I turned on my radio and used the ships communication systems to extend the range to the halo.

-Forruner A.I. please respond.-

Only static.

-This is Spartan team black, please respond.-

Static again.

"WE ARE BEING LOCKED ON!" Carolina shouted.

"By what?" Adam asked.

"By the halo" I said to him before going back to the radio. -We are human, the rings worked for a while, but it did not kill all the flood- I was cut off.

-Hu...human..?-It was the A.I. that 343 was talking to before being deployed to 04. -The archives mention homo-sapens. But never mentioned them as space worthy beings...-

-It has been over 100,000 years since the firing of the ring, we had many planets, but lost them in a war.-

-I will not allow this ring to be used as a weapon against your enimes.-

-The enime is the flood, the very thing that the ring was built for. We have some sort of device onboard that the forerunners made, but we have no idea what it does, we do not intend to use the ring. Just the info on a device we recovered if you permit us.-

There was several moments of radio silence, and then Carolina spoke up.

"We are no longer being targeted, Flight path downloaded."

-I will allow this breach in protocol, but heed my warning... Try anything and I will not hesitate to kill all of you.- The A.I. said.

-Thank you.-

~x~ several minutes later

We landed and waited for the A.I. to show himself. Stephen set up a copy of the data from Skarlets history as a offer for his help. Of course some of it was censored for the safety of humanity of course.


	27. Ready! fire! repeat!

A/N: **PLEASE READ!** I have been working two night jobs (closing at wendys and overnight at Mcdonalds) and have had little time to work on my storys, but rest easy because I have written a few chapters of another story I have not posted yet, it is a sequel to this one and is still in the works. I just last month found the way to finish this one and a back ground to the new one. With the chapters that I have written for the new one, there is a slight chance that it will come out at a steady pace. Please note that I have not edited this chapter very much (at all), and it could still use some work.

* * *

><p>"I know you..." 049 Abject Testament said after the others had left the cargo bay. And right now my back was against a wall with 049 a little to close for comfort, even if he was only a A.I. "You were there... Over 100,000 years ago. Do you remember what I said back then?"<p>

"You said 'We deserve to be forgotten...'"

"Do you know why?" He asked.

"No... Best guess is because of the halos."

"No, because the Forruners were so close to being planet shapers."

"What about the shield worlds?"

"Just constructs... no ordinal life forms. I mean to form planets with just will alone, like the ones that made my creators..."

"You mean the precursors?"

"Yes... And the Forruners killed them... We deserve to be forgotten for that. We had already changed your DNA to be more than you are now, but the librarians plans changed that, the markers that put the plans into action for John, the 'Spartans', the ancilicas, and even you... Adam..."

"Me? And my name is Max."

"No... I know you, I oversaw the plans for you myself. How do you think I knew you were there over 100,000 years ago? The fact that you have had 6 of what you call dreams. And the fact that you will have one more with the librarian."

"You did all this to me?" I felt rage building inside me, but I put a cap on it and saved it for the flood. "What about Destiny huh? Was she part of your plan?"

He tilted slightly "Destiny?"

"My girlfriend, she was zapped here with me."

"For what its worth, I am sorry, I did not plan that, but I know that the librarian will have an explanation for her... Now, are we going to light my ring one last time or not?"

"Why the hell would we activate the ring? It kills the food source for the flood. Us, any living thing that the Flood can feed on."

"That was not the original plan, but we were pushed into firing them before the plan was complete, the lifeforms that were stored were incase such a thing happened... And it did. if we had not been pushed... You would not be standing here, or even alive."

"So you had this planned out even as the rings were being built?"

"Yes, now come with me."

At that moment I felt energy running through me and saw that same energy around me. it was the rings teleport system.

I blanked out for a second and then found myself and the device was with us, I looked around and found that we had been taken to one of the many generator rooms on the halo ring. I heard the humming of the teleport and the others were in the room with me now. John was not worried from the look of it, he had been through the system before, the others were on full alert though. They calmed down after I told them that 049 had brought us here.

"I can not do this, only a reclaimer may. Now let me hook up the device to the generator."

As he spoke, the device opened and motorized cables glided out and connected to various parts of the generator. I heard a loud humming noise sound and the rings generator started up with a light blue glow. The cables started arching and then the light blue glow changed shades and turned a dark green... After that the cables went limp and 049 sighed.

"Did it not work?" Stephen asked.

"It did... But after 100,000 years of waiting, all that needs doing now is to fire this ring."

"If the power has changed, and it is now only going to affect the flood, that's a good thing right?" Doug asked 049.

"It is a good thing... but I will miss watching over this ring. My programming was set to shut down after the ring was fired for the second time, and destroy this ring.

~x~

We had been teleported to the control room and started talking amongst ourselves, deciding who would fire the ring. 049 intervened and told us that it would be all of us except Stephen because he was wearing the forruner armor. The key was teleported in front of us all and then 6 more. Adam, Doug, Carolina, John, Skarlet, Austin, and I grabbed our key and found the right slot.

"On three." John said. "One... Two... Three." We inserted the keys...

For a moment nothing happened. Then the floor started to shake and rumble. The ring was coming to life one last time. 049 turned to Stephen. "Take care of him Fool."

"Who said I was a fool?" Stephen asked.

"Who said I was talking to you Stephen?" 049 stated right before teleporting us into the bridge of the ship we came on.

The ship rumbled to life and the screens showed that it was programmed for best away speed.

"There is no overrid-" Carolina started, but I cut her off.

"Does not matter, 049 set it up, let it run." I said.

Carolina sat down in the chair closest to her and crossed her arms. The rest of us sat down and watched the show from the rear camera. The ring was powering up and building the charge much like it did in halo 3, but now it was the same shade of green that the generator was.

Spreading like water, the wave quickly caught up to us and passed through us and I passed out.

~x~ (back onboard the Infinity. Third person view)

"Hold them back!" Lasky said while firing his shot gun.

"What the hell are these things Captain?" A Trooper asked over the crack of his DMR.

"Its the flood, first report from the life support deck, it was quickly sealed but is making its way around the ship." As he said this Roland's avatar flickered to life.

"Captain! Incoming energy wave. Unknown type. Off the scale sir." The A.I. said.

"A little busy here Roland!" Lasky blasted a infection form causing the others around it to snap crackle and pop.

The green wave from the ring started passing through the ship starting at the bridge and in a second reached the engine at the rear of the ship. Along its way, Lasky saw that the flood was dissolved and he felt light headed from the energy but was still in one piece.

"Roland... Casualty count." Lasky asked.

"50 men, 10 women... No civilians. The flood didn't reach the recreation deck thank god."

"Yeah... Something like that... Can you trace where that energy came from?"

"One moment... Calculation..." Roland held his fingers to his avatar temple. A moment later he looked up again. "Location locked, from anything I know about you, you are about to say..."

"Prep for slipspace jump" Lasky said.

"Bingo" Roland did a little salute and turned his avatar off.

"Get Saraha Palmer in here quickly, if that was a ring then we may need some ground troops ready for anything."

"Yes sir." Rolands voice sounded from a speaker, but left his Avatar off.

The ship made the jump shortly after.


	28. Email Twitch

The last chapter was not emailed out even to my own email, this is a test to see if any are being sent out, if you did not got a email about the 27 chapter and got this one, then go back one chapter and R&R


	29. Home coming

The Infinity was now in slipspace traveling along to the newly detected Halo ring. Little did they know that they would find the furruner ship drifting with 7 Spartans and a human in furruner armor. Lasky was talking to Palmer, working on a action plan for landing on the ring.

"We need to secure the control room as fast as we can, send two teams to the library to get the key, if what the covenant told us is true, the groups that split off are heading there now along with us. The infinity will maintain a orbit and the frigets will be placed inside the ring above atmo." Lasky was drawing the plans out on the holo table. Palmer was watching intently.

"Sir, do you have any idea how large the sepperteist group will be?" She asked.

"The Brutes stole about half the fleet that was available, about 35 flag ships. I don't know about anything smaller."

"Thats not a lot to go on." Palmer crossed her arms.

Lasky looked her dead in the eye, but not for the fact that he was a captain trying to get his words set in to her head. "Well thats all we got, make it work."

~x~ Adams POV.

I was in a building of gigantic size, I was thinking that I was in a forruner building, maybe the library, but what I saw walking past me was unreal, and not forruner. It was a giant, at least 18 feet tall. It walked... no, its legs were moving, but it more like glided over to a bookcase that was tall enough to need a jet pack to reach the middle shelf.

It pulled a scroll from one of the shelfs and opened it, I could not see the text from where I was at, but I could see that it was glowing. I looked closer at the tall being and saw that he had a few scars, one on his arm, and a few on his face. they were very faint, but still visible. The man glanced up from the scroll he was reading, he saw me and chuckled and looked back at his scroll.

He spoke in a language that I had never heard of. "Errorinad teralab sholvan terrananed"

"What?" I asked, knowing that I might never get the anser.

He spoke in a broken english this time. "Time to speak to the keeper of knowledge."

I blacked out again and to me, I woke up moments later. I found my self standing beside the librarian. She was manipulating two orange controls. Off in the distance I saw a metal tear drop rising into a orange globe that had black panels covering it.

"Whats that?" I ask her.

"A grave... In hopes that a better man may be born from it..." She said sadly.

"Why me? Why my friends?" I asked her after the tear drop had disappeared into the globe.

"Because young one, the universe was not ment to be trifled with. And when we casted out our makers... the universe cried and could not stand to see such atrocitys..."

"You speak as if the universe is alive."

"In ways it is. But it is in its own way, nothing can change what was set into motion by its choices." She placed a hand on my shoulder. "But humanity should not suffer from what we did... please understand that we meant to save all of life, as is our duty with the mantel. But we failed, to late did we realize that the flood was for us, and not you."

"Then why was it my friends and I that finished your job? And why was Destiny brought through with me?"

"I never planned to bring anyone but you and your friends... Im sorry..."

"What about my dreams? Like this one?"

"Dreams are not confined by time and space... You are speaking to me 100,000 years from when your body fell asleep. But a side effect is that not all of your dreams are true... the future always changes. But it is up to you to make your future. Now go... I need to set something straight."

"untill next time then..."

"No... There will be no more after this."

"Good bye then."

I let my self fade this time... letting the darkness come on its own.

~x~ An hour later after Adam passed out.

I was on the floor of the cargo bay with Austin and Stephen keeping an eye on me, and by that I mean that they were messing around with some stuff laying around.

"So your suit was charged how again?" Austin asked Stephen who was bending some girders that were laying in the cargo bay of the ship.

"That wave that the halo ring sent out before self destruction was full of the same type of energy that this suit uses. Before it was at only 10% capacity." Stephen said as he took the girder and made a pretzel out of it.

I sat up "So your suit was stronger than Johns even at a tenth of its full potential?"

They looked at me.

"I will tell the others he's up." Austin said and he walked off.

"So what did she say?" Stephen asked somehow knowing that I was talking to the librarian

"She said that it was there fault with the flood, that they caused it." I told him after I stood up.

"They made the flood?"

"No... But in a way they started the whole war between them and the flood."

"So why was it us that finished it? I mean they were the ones that caused all of this." He asked me.

"I never got the chance to ask. When I was talking to her, she was sad about something, but I could not tell what it was about, so we made it quick." I told him.

"Alright..."

We sat in silence for a few moments before my radio popped to life. -Max, the infinity jumped into orbit on the far side of the planet, should we hail them?- Skarlet asked.

-Yes, but don't let them know what happened yet, I will tell Lasky in person.- I told them.

"Are we going over there?" Stephen asked.

"Most likely, I don't see a reason to stay on here. Besides, our Jobs are done here, we should head back home." I said.

"I see, tell the infinity to mantain there orbit and deploy a unmaned pelican."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because esserin, won't let humanity get there hands on this ship and exploit its workings, he is upset about infinity and its engines enough."

"Ok, ONI won't like it, but who am I to say no?"

"ONI?"

"Office of Naval Intelligence. Not a nice group if you ask me, tried to experiment with the flood on humans and covinet alike from what I heard."

"Right... best keep this ship away from them then."

I radio the infinity and Lasky got on the comm.

-Spartan Max, report.-

-Plenty to sir, but off comm sir, highly sensitive data.-

-Alright, Dock your ship when we reach the near side of the planet.-

-Negative, requesting the use of a pelican, remote guidance only.-

-For what?-

-The ship is to far advanced for humanity, its course will be set to fly into the sun to destroy it.- I looked at Stephen and asked "Does that work for your A.I.?"

Stephen nodded.

-*Sigh* Alright, but this one is on you Max, ONI wanted as much intel as possable.-

-Yes sir. Ready and waiting for connection to pelican guidance system.-

-Preping the pelican, pilots not happy signing over her bird. Over and out-

Stephen and I made our way to the bridge and let the others know that we would give up the ship and that we would be going EVA to meet the Pelican. After Esserin set a flight path to the sun for the ship, we grabbed any weapons that we brought with us except the furruner weapons. We deleted any data that our suits logged on the ship. We got to the air lock and my helmet beeped at me telling that the pelican was ready. As soon as we hopped out of the ship, it fired its engines, first to escape the planet the halo used to be around, and then to lower its orbit into the sun.

-That would be one heck of a light show.- Carolina said.

-Not that you would be able to see it over the light of the sun.- Skarlet said.

I was busy flying the pelican, once I set a course to intercept us, I sent a flight plan to the others. -Follow this plan, don't deaveate.-

-Why?- Austin asked.

-See for your self- I said as the pelican came into view and I started my jetpack.

I fired full thrust starting the flight plan I had worked out. The pelican got closer and soon reached the top of its orbit, my aim was past it following its flight when it started to fall down to the other side of the orbit. Soon I was close enough to see the rivets on the pelican and even sooner I was on board. Quickly followed by the others. Adam made his way to the piolets seat.

~x~ A little while later.

We had landed in one of Infinitys many bays. Roland told us to report to the lab that Cortana was in.

As we made our way through, Stephen was getting a few strange looks because of his armor. Also I noticed something was off... there were a few patches of blood on the floors and walls. I stopped a crew man. "What happened here?" I waved my hand at some of the blood.

"Flood somehow got onboard and attacked. I don't know the details, you will have to ask a CO or the captain, sorry but I am in a rush." He walked off.

"Flood, here?" Doug asked.

"Yeah... Roland, where is the captain?" I asked at the terminal on the wall.

-In the lab with Dr. Halsey. I am detecting a fault with the sensors where your party walks spartan, do you know whats going on?-

"No, is it kathryn Halsey with Lasky?"

-Cortana Halsey.-

That worked out. "Thank you. Lets go." I told the others.

~x~

We were at the lab doors and found two marines standing guard. The two stepped of to the side when we walked up.

"Sir." One of them said.

I nodded to him and went through. Inside was chaos, eggheads running around everywhere.

"What I want to know is how the Flood got on to my ship Cortana." Lasky was mad. "You request data on the flood and then moments later there was a flood infection running loose."

I stood behind Lasky. "Sir. Spartan-"

"Not now." He didn't even glance at me. "Cortana, I have been real nice letting you and your mother have the labs. But when I said that I wanted data on what you do, now your telling me that-" Cortana cut him off.

"Sir. If you want to talk about this, then we will do so in privet or without the other scientists here."

"*Sigh* alright, anyone that has something else to do, clear out, any others... take a coffee break." Lasky announced.

"Sir" I said. "Whats going on?"

"Flood attack, before the ring fired from what I can tell." He looked at me this time and saw that we had made it back.

"Yes sir, that was the work of the ring, but that was its final purpose. So the monitors had it self destruct after if fired." Adam said.

"So there is no ring anymore?"

"Right. Infinity can still look for the other four. But this one is gone."

"OK then. ONI will have a field day with your ass, but they might not because it was the A.I.'s choice right..? Who is that?" He pointed at Stephen.

"Stephen K. sir, he was inside the furruner planet that was located with the crystal. He is with me."

"Furruner?" Cortana asked.

"Human" Stephen said while his helmets plates slid into the rest of his armor to reveal his head. "This suit was waiting for me when I arrived at the planet, now do we have a way back to our time or not? I was in the middle of hanging out with my girlfriend when i passed out."

"No, you don't not anymore." Cortana said.

"What do you mean no?" almost everyone asked at once.

"The flood that attacked us came from the teleport. When Destiny went through, the flood came along as well too." Cortana said.

'oh hell no...' I thought to my self...

"Cortana, could there be more flood?" I asked.

"Yes, and that why we can't open the teleporter."

"You can and you will." I said as I walked to Stephens side. "You still have that grenade?"

He held out his arm and one of the panels slid back, out of the opening dropped the small cylinder. "Just press the orange dot and toss."

"You want to send that?" Cortana asked.

"Not just this." I stood on the platform. "Do it." I told her.

"But-" Cortana started. John put his hand on her shoulder. "Let him try..." He said.

"...OK..."

"I will send Halsey a message saying if its safe to send the rest of you guys home."

Cortana started the program and the teleporter hummed to life. A moment later I blacked out.

~x~

This time I was floating, I had lost my armor somehow and I was getting flashes of things, parts of the halo stores, games, and some of the videos... But I could not see the flood.

Many things past me by, and after a while I saw what I needed to see... The gravemind. It was around the time of Halo 3 I could see through the side of the teleporter tunnel(if thats what it can be called).

"Welcome to your grave Adam... Killer of the truth." I heard its voice say.

"I don't know what that means. But its most likely wrong." I said as I readied the grenade.

The gravemind came into view and I saw my opening to throw. And so I did, I pressed the dot and threw as hard as I could.

"I am the truth." He said as the halo ring 04B came online and fired.

The grenade landed on one of the graveminds mandibles and stuck fast. glowing a bright green as it built its charge.

"Why don't you just stay dead this time huh?" I said as I drifted away from the opening, falling faster and faster. Falling through time.

I could see the Spartan Program, the kids training, one redhead kid running ahead of everyone on a obstacle course. Then that fadded to another scene, I could now see Sargent Johnson was in line with a lot more marines. This was a view of the very original Spartan program.

That fadded quickly and I gained even more speed, viewing history in reverse. The start of the innie war, the first human colonized planet, the first slipspace jump made by humans. A quick blip of what looked like a war that was contained in North America. A flash of a nuclear warhead in the upper atmosphere and then it was over and gone from my sight. I could see the end of the tunnel, it was comming up fast.

I reached the end and stopped falling. I could not see where I was going to land. After a moment I started to float down through the end of the tunnel. I found my self on a bed... My bed. I got up and looked at the window. Still daylight. I checked myself over and found myself with my old teenage body. I ran a finger over where the scar was from Daisy, and it was not there. I walked out of the room and started down the stars. But I stopped when I heard something that I was not expecting.

It was Destinys voice. "Hey adam, whats this?"

I was about to respond... and then I did.

"I have no idea." The other me said.

I was a few minutes too early. I arrived right before my computer sent Destiny and I to the future.

I sat down on the stairs and waited. I heard the humming and then the zap. I waited for a few minutes and walked into the front room.

No one was there. I checked the computer and saw that the wires were melting, I moved the hard drive out of the way so that it would not get damaged.

A searing pain on my face hit me hard... The scar, it was back. After the pain faded, I checked my face in the bathroom mirror, it was bleeding this time. I cleaned it up. But my parents would ask about it. So I did the only thing I could think of, I went outside and around the back to the kitchen window. I picked up a stone and threw it through the window.

Once back inside I started sweeping up the glass, but a car horn sounded and I remembered that Destinys dad was coming to pick her up. As I remembered that, I heard a humming come from the front room. I checked it out and found Destiny was on the floor. Still knocked out from the drugs that Cortana gave her. I could not see the shirt with the roses, I would have to figure that out later. I picked her up and carried her out to the car that her dad was waiting in. I explained to him that she had fallen asleep as I buckled her up.

I kissed her forehead and said thank you to her dad for picking her up. He simply nodded and we parted ways.

Once back inside I set up another email account on my laptop seeing as the other ones I made won't be made for more then a few years. I sent a email to Cortana telling her that the Flood was taken care of and that it was safe to send the others back to there times.

I closed my laptop and smiled to myself, knowing that my future was in my hands. As long as it was with the ones I care about, I know that it will be more than grand.

~x~ (6 years later)

I was dreaming again, but this time there was a difference, I was in charge of this one more or less. I had been training my self to dream like I did before.

I found my self in a rainbow colored ora, with many things floating around me. None of it mattered other then to tell me that I was dreaming. I focused on the person and a date as I had learned from my last few self inflicted dreams.

I pictured Cortana and the time was moments after I had left. The ora around me slowly melted and formed into the lab with the teleporter. I was behind everyone who were standing around the teleporter blocking my view.

After a moment right before I was going to speak up. Austin asked "So did it not work?"

"It did, and its safe to come through." I said.

Everyone turned around and saw me.

"How are you here?" Cortana asked what was on everyone's minds.

"Those dreams that I experienced were set up by the furruners for me, this how ever is self inflicted. I trained my self to dream." I told her.

I heard her computer beep.

"That would be the email I sent right after I got back." Something occured to me. "Austin asked if it didn't work, what did he mean?" I asked.

Everyone stepped aside and gave me a clear view of the teleporter pad. I saw a Spartan on the pad, passed out or something... or something because that Spartan was me from 7 years ago from my point of view.

"Why is my body still there?" I asked.

"I don't know, let me do a scan." Cortana walked over with a small medical scanner.

After a few moments, she stood up over my body. "You're body is in a coma, as to why its here... My best guess is that because of the nerolace, Destiny did not have one and was sent back body and all."

"So the rest of us will leave a body behind?" Doug asked.

"possible... Cortana, we need to set up a place well hidden to keep their bodys." Lasky said.

I started feeling light headed. "Guys, I am fading. It is safe to come through the teleport. Also, John..." I faded right then... before I could tell him that his parents were survivors and that they had live through the wars.

~x~

I woke up on the couch, it was dark out side. Destiny and I had moved in together right after we had gotten married and were quite happy. I started to get up and I realized that something was holding me down.

It was Alien... Named after the one that I saved from earths future. He was only a few months old and like sleeping on my chest. Destiny thinks its cute.

* * *

><p>Thats it lads. The end...<p>

My friend and I are working on a story together and if you liked this one, you just might love the one we are working on. It will be in two differnt stores with the same genral plot, but it is not because I am trying to push you guys to him and get him followers, it is because the story we are working on is in two different view points. But fear not, if you only want to read one of the stores then you wont miss much other then a little back ground info from the other. We won't post the stores till we have more then a few chapters done. His story will start around the same time as mine, but he wont post anything till I have a few chapters out from mine. I will keep you faithful readers posted. :D


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